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Benjamin Fitzpatrick Writes After the War Alabama's Benjamin Fitzpatrick Writes After the War on Rec

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Benjamin Fitzpatrick Writes After the War Alabama's Benjamin Fitzpatrick Writes After the War on Rec
<B>Alabama's Benjamin Fitzpatrick Writes After the War on Reconstruction and Slavery!</B></I> Autograph Letter Signed, 4 pages, recto and verso, Wetumpka, Alabama, October 23, 1866. To S.F. Miller. Some faint pencil notations on first page, else fine. Fitzpatrick was Alabama's governor, its senator, and the choice of his party to run with Stephen Douglas in 1860 - a nomination he declined. Here Fitzpatrick, who did not take a particularly active role in the Confederacy, writes shortly after the war about the "sad changes" which have come over the South. "<I>...It seems to me like a dream, and yet the startling reality stares in the face. Still I do not despond under the reverses that have overtaken us, and but for the dark future would set about with youthful ardor to rebuild my fortunes. There lies the rub. What is to be our fate if the Radicals obtain control of the Government as it seems they are doing! ... I have less to complain of than many others... A majority of my servants are still working with me and work very well... The remainder of my servants who left me, like the Israelites of old, are now longing for the flesh-pots of Egypt, their onions, their leeks and squashes. They all have seen me and desire to return to their old home. Have you ever remarked how the freed slaves resemble the Israelites in this particular?</B></I>" From the Henry E. Luhrs Collection. Accompanied by LOA from PSA/DNA.