[Letter to] Dear Deborah
Contributors: Weston, Deborah, b.1814 recipient
Series: Deborah Weston Correspondence (1830-1879)
Published: 1861
Place of publication: New Bedford, [Mass.]
Language: eng
Format: [manuscript]
Subjects: Correspondence; Women abolitionists; Antislavery movements; History
Notes: Holograph, signed.

Joseph Ricketson is saddened by the news of Lucia [Weston]'s sudden illness, after having hoped that she was recovering. Ricketson's health was affected by the heat as well as by the "intense excitement about our national affairs." He praises the sermons of Mr. Potter: "like Richard Coeur de Lion, he wields...the weighty battle axe of the Almighty..." In Potter's absence, [Moncure Daniel?] Conway preached here; "our army passed through his father's garden," and from his knowledge of the country "he thought our troops would be beaten unless the enemy were attacked by Patterson & McLellan [sic] on the flank--his prediction was 'fortunately' proven true"--"fortunately," Ricketson writes, because "it will arouse up our nature more to the true cause of the war viz. slavery, than if we had been victorious." He relates young Horatio Durfee's battle experiences, also the heroic rescue action of Luther Bent at the battle of Great Bethel. He gives the life history of Major Maggi, a noble Italian exile, who came to America with Garibaldi. Maggi and Edward L. Peirce had charge of the colored fugitives at Fortress Monroe. The fugitives did more work because they were sober, "while the whites were sometimes beastly intoxicated." Another Italian, Luigi Contri, has also come to fight against slavery.