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Hillsboro Sept 6th 65.

My dear sir,
I acknowledge with much pleasure your kind and friendly letter and thank you for this manifestation of interest in me & mine. I am at
all times grateful for the sympathy of friends - pleased to know that there are many whose good opinion I have I shall seek to continue to merit it.

I should very cheerfully address your suggestion did an opportunity offer - I attach but little importance to my individual opinion - & whilst
I have no wish to intrude I certainly have no purpose to withhold or conceal my views- either as to the present or past. In the past I certainly
was an earnest & a honest "Confederate" - as alike from the convictions of duty and interest.

I honestly thought that my first duty & allegiance was to my Native State ... And if in following its fortunes to which it was pledged by the most solemn act, in a Convention of its ablest jurists, the most conservative men - the most trusted & time honored of its statesmen - [illegible] high long & all known for their deep interest in their country - I committed an error. I do aver that it proceeded from no love of strife - or ambition perhaps - but from convictions of duty to state & section.

But from the day that that great & good man Genl. Lee announced to the world that he had "yielded to Superior numbers & resources," I regarded the issue as settled - the conflict closed - the struggle for Southern independence a failure but no sane man - here or elsewhere entertains a thought of the removal of the conflict.
Whatever may be our trials - large or many be our losses - hard as may be our fortune -