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Hillsboro Sept 6^th 65.

My dear Sir,

I acknowledge with much pleasure
your kind & 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 addresst your suggestion
did an opportunity offer-- I attach but little importance
to my individual opinion-- & whilst
I have no wish to obtrude 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 & 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-- their might & trust long & well
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 & nation.

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.

And no sane man-- here or elsewhere entertains
a thought of the renewal of the conflict.
Whatever may be our trials-- large or may be
our losses-- hard as may be our future--