REDWING, MINNESOTA, June 26, 1861.
MR. SANBORN,--I was very glad to find awaiting me, on my arrival here
on Sunday afternoon, a letter from you. I have performed this journey
in a very dead and alive manner, but nothing has come so near waking
me up as the receipt of letters from Concord. I read yours, and one
from my sister (and Horace Mann, his four), near the top of a
remarkable isolated bluff here, called Barn Bluff, or the Grange, or
Redwing Bluff, some four hundred and fifty feet high, and half a mile
long,--a bit of the main bluff or bank standing alone. The top, as you
know, rises to the general level of the surrounding country, the river
having eaten out so much. Yet the valley just above and below this (we
are at the head of Lake Pepin) must be three or four miles wide.
I am not even so well informed as to the progress of the war as you
suppose. I have seen but one Eastern paper (that, by the way, _was_
the _Tribune_) for five weeks. I have not taken much pains to get
them; but, necessarily, I have not seen any paper at all for more
than a week at a time. The people of Minnesota have _seemed_ to me
more cold,--to feel less implicated in this war than the people of
Massachusetts. It is apparent that Massachusetts, for one State at
least, is doing much more than her share in carrying it on. However, I
have dealt partly with those of Southern birth, and have seen but
little way beneath the surface. I was glad to be told yesterday that
there was a good deal of weeping here at Redwing the other day, when
the volunteers stationed at Fort Snelling followed the regulars to the
seat of the war. They do not weep when their children go _up_ the
river to occupy the deserted forts, though they _may_ have to fight
the Indians there.