Mrs. Sarah Bella Dunlap, Mr. Salmon P. Chase's third wife possessed a linage which dated back to the days of when the City of Cincinnati happened to be an outpost town on the edge of the wilderness. It would be Bella as Salmon called her, who would give birth to his fifth daughter, Janet Ralston Chase on September 18, 1847. Janet Chase would become one of the two surviving daughters to live to adulthood, the other daughter being Janet's eldest sister "Katherine Jane Chase. Mr. Chase buried four of his infant daughters and three wives by the time lived to be forty-six years old.

Janet Chase like her half sister Kate or Katie as Mr. Chase sometimes called her by the time she became four years told, she too would become motherless from the dreaded disease called comsumption. (Tuberculosis) For years, Bella sought out the elusive cure for her fatal disease from the east coast and of New Jersey to the Gulf State of Texas. The final and last marriage of Mr. Chase ended with Belle's death on January 13, 1852 at the age of thirty-two years of age.

From the date of Mr. Chase's first marriage March 4, 1834 to Catherine Jane Garniss until the death of his last wife, Sarah Bella Dunlop Ludlow Chase, January 13, 1852, Chase suffered seven deaths within his immediate family, not counting the deaths of his own relation within the matter of the last seventeen years.

Salmon P. Chase lobbied the state legislature to have Spring Grove Cemetery chartered on January 21, 1945 and received two free lots for his services. The first burial in the cemetery took place September 1 of that same year. Chase allowed his two losts to remain vacant for years and than in the 1860's, he bagan the process of disinterring his wives and children and transferring their coffins to Spring Grove so they could all be located in lot ten and eleven. Today the Chase Family is located at Spring Grove Cemetery, except for Janet Chase Hoyt who is in Laurel Hill Cemetery, located in Thomasville, Georgia.

Janet was four years and four months only when her mother Belle died of tuberculosis. Kate was five years and one month old when her mother died of the same disease. At their tender ages, neither girl possessed the opportunity to know their mother outside of their nurturing care, which they received from their loving mothers. In this, one respect, Janet and Kate, equally experienced the same traumatic loss of their mother at a young age.

The one difference between Janet Chase and her half sister Katherine happened to be, Janet felt content with being exactly who she was. This however was not true with Katherine. Katherine wanted and desired the love of her father to reinforce her very purpose for wanting and desiring to be constantly at her father�s side. Kate being the eldest also brought a certain degree of stability into the household, which in turn made life all that much less complicated for Janet.

Mr. Chase did not believed in capitol punishment for any wrongdoing when it came to his two beloved girls. For punishment, he would make the two girls pray with him for a better understanding of their misdeeds or for their social outlooks on different matters.

While Katie attended school in New York City, Janet remained at home with her father, but not necessarily in his immediate company. When Mr. Chase was compelled to travel due to business or politics, Janet would visit her grandparents or one of the Mr. Chase�s in-laws.

After five years of being under Miss Haines�s control over Kate, she convinced her father to allow her to attend a different school in Pennsylvania, run by a woman of the name of Eastman. Mr. Chase won the election for Governor of Ohio, which would commence in 1856. At this point in Katie�s life, she left school and took on the duties of her father�s Hostess, private secretary, and Mr. Chase�s personal confident.
p>As soon as Janet became able to place pen to paper, she began writing to Katie in New York City. In Janet�s letters, she would continually proclaim to Kate why she missed her during her absence from home. Like a dutiful younger sister, Janet informs Katie of all her activities as well as the friends she has acquired during her absence. What little she understands about her father�s actives she also writes Katie, so she remained well informed of their activities at home.

When Mr. Chase became Governor of Ohio, Katie took on her new responsibilities at the age of fifteen. Janet at this time was nearly nine years old. In the year 1891, Janet wrote an article for The New York Daily Tribune giving some of her childhood experiences.

�However indifferently told, personal recollections of important people and events are of interest - even if they are only the reminiscences of one who was a child at the time, and who remembers persons and thing only from a childish point of view. There is this to be said also of children, that they observe and think far more than their elders give them credit for: and perhaps the very indifference with which their presence is regarded gives them opportunities of seeing people as they are that and older person might not have. An amusing instance of this came under my observation quite recently. A little friend was invited to lunch with a family whose suave and beautiful elder sisters greatly admired for her perfect manners and kindly ways. In the evening, the small visitor called the family to dinner table with the following: �Good gracious, mother! if you think Miss So - and - So is nice, I only wish you could have seen her today! Cross! I never saw anything like it. She came in while we were at luncheon. First, Mrs. --- (her mother) had ordered something all wrong, and it was scold, scold about that: then Mary (the sister) got it: she had taken something from her room: then she said the house was horribly stuffy and wanted to open a window on our backs. And at last, when we were laughing and having a little fun, she said, I really think, mother the children ought not to be allowed to make such a noise that no one else can speak; - and she had been talking herself all the while, one scold. This, told with a child�s ready mimicry, was a revelation: and how little did the smiling girl we met the next day realize that the small critic of whose presence she had hardly been aware, had taken in every detail of her ill-tempered home manner.

If I could only have realized at the time that I should want to write about individuals and occurrences connected with the eventful years of 1860, 1867, what material could have been collected! For we lived in simple fashion and there was no governess to keep us in the schoolroom away from our elders, and in my father�s library I had always a welcome corner �if I kept quiet.� There I spent much of my time, and consequently many memories of distinguished men come to me faint and confused, from the far distance. Certain events and person, however, I can remember distinctly, and as I try to think of all these things it seems like a scene on a stage from which certain throngs of moving figures from which certain forms detach themselves, come forward, seen quite clear and distinct for a few minutes -- and are then lost in the throng again. The first political event I can remember was the mistaken, fanatical, but heroic and self-immolating attempt of John Brown to free the slaves of Virginia. It was like a thunder clap to the people of America, and I well recollect the wild excitement, which pervaded the country, wrought up as it, was about the great and vital question of the day. Many eloquent speeches had been made and much had been written about the enfranchisement of the human race: Uncle Toms Cabins�, especially had aroused the most intense excitement. Ohio�s a border State, was naturally the scene of many thrilling adventures of fugitives slaves and it was not uncommon for free colored people to be kidnapped, carried over the river and sold into slavery. On the sideboard in our dinning room stood a pitcher, which had been given to Mr. Chase by the colored people of Cincinnati for defending just such case in the early years of his law practice. It must have required not a little moral bravery to have undertaken the defense of the poor kidnapped man in those days when slave power was rampant, and when to own oneself a sympathizer with the race meant social ostracism and actual professional loss. But the young lawyer had the courage of his convictions, and in spite of the carnet advise of his friends, in spite of remonstrance�s on the subject from men as Daniel Webster and Henry Clay -- who had both taken a liking for the young lawyer when he acted as Mr. Wirt�s private secretary -- and, last but not least, notwithstanding his own strong social and professions ambitions, he took up the cause of the oppressed which at that time no other lawyer of standing would assume, and he saved the poor wretch from his captors. The pitcher bore this inscription:

From the day on which he received it until the day of his death this pitcher furnished Mr. Chase with his only beverage - cold, clear water. What makes or mares a man�s destiny is a very curious thing. In this instance that which was supposed would prove his insuperable stumbling block to the successful career of a young and clever lawyer was really the corner stone of his future fame and influence, proving again that the old proverb �Fais ce que tu des advienne que. porgy,� not infrequently leads worldly success. It was a curious and interesting coincident that the famous old Bishop Chase of blessed memory, who was my father�s uncle and second father should have also owed his success in things temporal to an act of self-sacrifice for a Negro. The story recently came to my knowledge in a very interesting way. In one of New York prettiest suburbs there is now living an old gentlemen of ninety five who, when he was a young man, attended a lecture given by Bishop Chase - a lecture which so impressed him by its direct and simple relation of the struggles an successes of that most remarkable man in building his church and college that on his return home he wrote out the entire account from memory. This paper, yellow with age tells how the gallant preacher and Pointe started a little church in Louisiana, where overpowered with a sick wife and numerous parochial duties finally concluded to buy a Negro. The $300 paid for the slave consumed nearly all his resources and the man not with standing his kindly treatment run away a few weeks. The Bishop gave up his parish after and returned to the North. Subsequently his troubles were many, and one year when his need was at the sorest a letter came to him from Louisiana to say that this man Jack had been caught and could be had for about the same sum he originally cost. Notwithstanding his great want of funds, Bishop Chase could not make up his mind to receive the proceeds from the sale of a man, and he gave Jack his freedom. Several years after this he was in England. Unsuccessful in his efforts to obtain an endowment fund for his Episcopal college, and received with scant courtesy, he was about to relinquish his plans and return home, when a friend in America, writing of him to a well-known noblemen, mentioned the history of the freed slave. The better classes of England at that time were intensely anti-slavery, and this incident opened both their hearts and purses to the Bishop and his project. From that time until the day of his death, they numbered among his firmest friends and stanches supporters, the very people who had at first received him with coldness and distrust.

In my childish days there were current, many wild stories of the mysterious Underground Railroad, which the children believed to be a bona fide subterranean passage under the State of Ohio wherein escaped slaves took passage for Canada. Later we discovered that it was simply a well-concocted system of countersigns and passwords, by which fugitives were passed from one kindly friend to others, and by them hidden and assisted until the free English border was reached. As the State of Ohio had about that time scored a Republican victory and Governor Chase, was a well known anti-slavery man, there was a great excitement in Virginia as to whether a rescue of John Brown would not be attempted from neighboring State, and perhaps it was natural enough that Governor Wise, knowing that the sympathies of both Ohio and its Governor were for the colored race, should feel alarmed: but as the chief magistrate of a great State Mr. Chase could be severe enough. To the frightened telegram of the Virginian, he sent answers as became the representative of law and order, while as the individual he sorrowed for the mistaken grand old man who stood single-handed against such careful odds. But it was impossible for a household accustomed to revere as friends of our family such men as Summer, Garrison, Wendell Phillips, Whittler and Longfellow, for children who read Dr. Bailey�s �National Era� every week and had cried over �Uncle Tom�s cruel suffering, not to feel jealous partisanship for the truly good old man who was about to die for others. The Governor�s library was connected with the rest of the house in pretty straggling fashion by a little conservatory, where the children, half mischievously and half through real feeling, constructed a little fort and raised a flag on which was painted rally and defiantly, �Freedom forever; slavery never.�

�See here Chase,� called back one of my father�s friend, as he was coming through the conservatory, �what little rebels have you got here? This will never do.�

The Governor came to the door and after standing there a minute, turned around and went back into his study; but in the evening he called us to him and explained very carefully how poor old John Brown had attempted to do, how National Law was scared and must be obeyed, and the right thinking men and women of the country must work by peaceful means for the liberation of the slaves - by the growth of the Republican party and right legislation. How little he dreamed that the emancipation was near and would receive such bloody baptism, and that only two years later the blue uniformed soldiers of the Republic would tramp down Pennsylvania Ave.; regiment after regiment, singing almighty chorus:

After that time came days full of excitement, for crisis was imminent. The air was filled with rumors of coming trouble and many men whose names afterwards became historic passed through the little conservatory to the library beyond. Garfield who then was in the State Legislature was a very frequent visitor. He was ruddy and Saxon looking in those days, like the German heroes in the Nibelunge, �folk�s sage,� and full of keen and live interest with everything connected with both politics and literature - which is by the way, not as unusual a condition as it would seem. He had a great liking for children and often stopped to talk with us in the conservatory, which was our constant winter playground, and one afternoon he assisted with much amusement at a physiological research, which consisted of the disinterment of several dead canaries� la order that their skeletons remains be presented to a museum, in the nursery. But he and the Governor Chase had taken up the study of the German language very zealously that winter, and as father was out of office for the first time in many years, his progress was the most rapid. He and Mr. Garfield compared notes, and it seemed very natural a couple years afterwards, when we were all domiciled in Washington, that Mr. Garfield should come in at breakfast time with his German book. �Can you read this Mr. Secretary?� he said to my father throwing him a little slip of paper. Sec. Chase carefully translated the few lines, which was written in German text and ran as follows:

And then he tossed them over to me, across the table. �Keep that child,� he said laughingly. It may be valuable some day when Garfield famous� For he had a great liking, and admiration for Mr. Garfield, which was fully reciprocated, and the two men were fast friends. Mr. Garfield laughed, too and I should have entirely forgotten the tiny slip had I not found it years after, when the slow death agony had passed and our brave and patient President was famous indeed for all times.

Governor Chase was ever and earnest student and even his busies days found time for literary reading. He was particularly found of studying the Bible in different languages, he always kept French, German, and Greek parchments, which he used constantly, as well as the English. He particularly recommended this way of reading the Scriptures as being most impressive, and he frequently regretted that he knew nothing of Hebrew to help him to a fuller understanding of the grandest of books. His taste for literature was of the keenest, and no political triumph ever gave him greater satisfaction than to see his name and one or two selected poems published in the �Poets and Poetry of the West� he showed a na�f pride in the book and his place among the poets. He was ever ready, too appreciate genus in others, and among the famous faces of the Ohio men of that time who have since become famous was a student to whom Mr. Chase always predicted a brilliant future. This was William Dean Howell, who with his fellow poet and dearest friend John Piatt had published a little book of verse entitled �The Poems of two Friends.� The book delighted my father and he read most of the little lyrics to us for he read very well and likes to have us listen to different bits that impressed him during the reading.

Carl Schurz too was a figure about that time greatly struck my childish fancy. His rapid talking and foreign gesticulation, and more wonderful than all for our friends were not musical, the way the way he would sit at the piano and strike great thunderous chords, and then run off into the softest of arias, all seemed most fascinating and quite different from any one else. But next to my father, the idol of our nursery was Mr. Summer. We were never weary of hearing how he stood up in the United States Senate, handsome, brave and eloquent, defending the cause of the oppressed and how felled by Brook�s cruel blow, he traveled in Europe to regain his health, and was received everywhere with the consideration and esteem which he so well deserved. Here was a hero indeed for a child! And I well recollect my first introduction to my ideal, and his pleased look and great hearty laugh, when Mr. Chase to my consternation, told him of my devotion, and how his picture adorned my room.

I wish I could remember more of that time the year of 59-60 must have been so full of vital interest, and children remember such unimportant things. A look, a sentence, some individual trait, will remain isolated and distinct and their memories when great and important happenings grow clearer, but at this time almost every recollection seems fragmentary and with out sequence and I can only give them as they exist.�
Janet Chase Hoyt.

During Katherine�s reign of Mr. Chase�s mansion in Columbus, Ohio, the two girls continued with their education. During their free time, Katherine and Janet attended political rallies where Janet experienced her sister�s outspokenness. As shy as Janet happened to be, Katherine was just the opposite. However, the two of them did take the time to investigate the legal system within their state and brought many injustices to their father�s attention. Of course, the two girls never approached their father until they collect all the necessary information pertaining to the innocents of the men, which the legal system had failed.

Janet�s shyness kept her from the attention of most visitors to the Gov. Mansion; Kate on the other hand was her father�s Hostess and became acquainted with the notable minds of the time. While Janet avoided most of Mr. Chase�s visitors, Kate was honing her skills as a conservationist when it came to the prominent subjects of the time. The two Chase girls knew most of the prominent men, but it was Kate attractiveness and her ability to converse with them freely, which impressed most of them favorably.

Katherine became enraptured with politics of the day and the power, which went hand in hand with its authority. Kate as her father developed the ambition these days to become first in whatever she attempted to do. It would be this very ambition, which in the end would become her greatest fault. Kate as her father possessed a temper and little or no tolerance for less than perfection. Janet did not possess any of these so-called virtues and felt perfect happy simply accepting her father�s love, attention, and being satisfied with being herself.

During the four years, the two Chase girls were living in the Governor�s Mansion rumors began floating around the community about Kate and some did not place her in a favorable light. Mr. Chase and Kate both attributed the rumors to normal jealousy brought about by other young social light that envied Mr. Chase�s daughter Kate.

Kate and Nettie, as Mr. Chase called Janet, also became excited about the possibility of Mr. Chase becoming the political nominee for the newly formed Republican Party. This never transpired and both Mr. Chase and his daughter Kate were disappointed tremendously, but kept the faith and Mr. Chase became the newly appointed Senator from Ohio State.

In time President elect, Mr. Lincoln offered Mr. Chase the Office of Treasury of the United States, because of his experience in the banking business when he represented the banks as their attorney. Mr. Chase was somewhat hesitant about accepting the position, but Kate informed her father the 1864 election was only four years away and it could possibly take them that long to organize their campaign.

When the Chase family arrived in Washington City, the city was nothing as you see it today. The streets were dirt, they were filthy and the horses dropping were in abundance. The waterways were little more then open sewerage. The town was full of office seekers and men of small character along with the women who accompanied them.

The Chase resided in hotels and various friends� homes until Mr. Chase finally rented a home on the corner of E. and Sixth Street for the sum of $100.00 per month. This residence many individuals would declare as Mr. Chase�s White House, where lavish parties would take place. Once again, Janet would be in the background, while Kate would be her father�s pleasing entertainer of very prominent men. Many important events took place within this household, which Janet always remembered. She remembers all the beau and friends who called upon her sister. Mr. Hay was one man who often walked with the two girls as they took a stroll around town. Mr. Garfield, a friend of Mr. Chase, who went back to the days of his governorship in Ohio also took the girls for buggy rides.

The battle of Bull Run reverberated throughout the Chase Mansion, but the actual sight of the wounded returning to Washington City made its imprint upon their mind. Kate allowed some of the not too seriously wounded into her home, so she and Janet could assist them in their humble way. The year 1861 did not fair well for the Union and President Lincoln decided to change the direction of the war. It was this fact that Janet Chase Hoyt remembered in February of 1893 when she wrote:

In the New York Tribune of Feb. 22, 1893, appeared an article on �How the Emancipation Proclamation was made, �written by Mrs. Janet Chase Hoyt, daughter of Salmon P. Chase. In this article, Mrs. Hoyt gives the following extract from a letter to her father in 1867:

�Looking over old papers, I found many of my memoranda, etc. of the war, and among them my draft of a proclamation of emancipation Submitted to Mr. Lincoln the day before his own� was issued. He asked all of us for suggestions in regard to its form and I submitted mine in writing, and among other sentences the close as it now stands, which he adopted from the draft in modification. It may be interesting to you to see precisely what I said, and I copy it. You must remember that in the original draft there was no reference whatever to divine or human sanction of the act. What I said was this at the conclusion of my letter: �Finally, I respectfully suggest than on an occasion of such interest there can be no imputation of affection against a solemn recognition of responsibility before men and before God, and that some such close at this will be proper: �And Upon this act, sincerely believed to be an act of justice warranted by the Constitution (and of duty demanded by the circumstances of the country), I invoke the considerate judgment of mankind and the gracious favor of Almighty God. �Mr. Lincoln invoked the considerate judgment of mankind and the gracious favor of Almighty God. �Mr. Lincoln adopted this close, substituting only for the words in parentheses these words: �upon military necessity, �which I think was not an improvement.�

Janet knew of Kate�s many beaus, in fact the line never seemed to cease. In early 1862, Janet observed Gov. Chase of Rhode Island once again taking and active interest in her beloved sister Kate. Janet always found the Governor to be a man of extreme generosity, both in manners as well as in pecuniary ways. Janet pictured Governor Sprague as a man who possessed the desire to find love and approval by his fellows. However, Janet was an innocent child who knew nothing of his many hidden agendas or of his many, many bad habits such as drinking in excess, smoking, chewing, and womanizing.

At this time, Janet was attending school in New York City. Whenever Janet returned to school Kate would travel with Janet to New York much to Mr. Chase dissatisfaction, because Janet always returned late due to the fact Kate and her shopped while the two girls were on their little junket. This displeased Mr. Chase, because to him nothing was more important than the education of his two daughters.

During Janet�s weekend stays at home in Washington, she often to part in wedding of relation and close friends of the family. These sorts of activities always seemed to please Mr. Chase when his two daughters were in the forefront of Washington�s Society. Many friends asked Mr. Chase if he ever regretted not having a son, which he promptly answered no.

When Kate married Gov. Sprague, she did so after Gov. Sprague had purchased Mr. Chase�s rented home, because he did not wish to reside under the roof of another man�s home. This must have been one of his many strange ways, which both girls would learn about in time.

The marriage of Kate Chase to Governor William Sprague took place on November 12, 1863 at eight-thirty o�clock at night. The wedding was the highlight of Washington�s Society. President Lincoln, his cabinet and untold prominent men attended what turned out to be the social highlight of 1863.

Janet pictured the marriage to be a happy one, since there was nothing, which her sister lacked materially. It seemed to the two girls the days of conservatism as far as pecuniary matters were concerned have now abated.

William Sprague and Katherine Chase mutually possessed one common fault, both possessed a hair trigger temper, which nether hesitated to display. Ambition was one attribute, which William seemed to lack, but Katherine possessed more than enough for the two of them. Kate strove for perfection, while William could become depressed and care little about anything including himself. When William had these frequents moments of depression, Kate thought of Mr. Hay�s description of William. He is much to do about nothing, everything he has his family fortune purchased for him. If this should be true, the last thing Kate wanted was for her to become one of his purchased possessions.

In the summer of 1864, Mr. Chase resigned his office of Treasury of the United States over a dispute with Mr. Lincoln over patronage concerning politics of the operation of the Port of New York City. Much to Mr. Chase�s surprise, the president accepted his resignation and Mr. Chase found himself without employment. Immediately, Kate invited her father to spend the summer at her Rhode Island summer residence located on a three hundred acre farm, which is located close to Narragansett Pier.

It was in the fall of 1864 when Mrs. Sprague realizes William has impregnated her with her first child. In the fall of 1864 the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, Justice Roger B. Taney died leaving the position open for President Lincoln to appoint a new Chief Justice. Mr. Chase may have looked forward to accepting this position, but not his daughter Kate, since she considered the appointed as putting her father on the shelf and out of the run of becoming President of The United States.

Mr. Chase most gladly accepted President Lincoln�s most generous offer regardless of Kate�s opinion of him accepting it. It was in December 1864 a pregnant Katherine Sprague along with her husband and her sister Janet watching Katherine�s beloved father taking the oath and the responsibilities, which encompassed the position.

In June of 1865, Katherine birthed her first child, a son, William Sprague, Jr., while her father and sister Janet toured the southern states, so her father could ascertain the feasibility of reinstating the Judicial System in the South again. Mr. Chase feared for the welfare of his daughter Kate, however, the birthing of the child was uneventful as far as having any problems were concerned. During his entire trip Mr. Chase continued to inform Kate of their activities,
>P> Beaufort Harbor N. C. May 5, 1865

My dear Kate,

I closed my last letter with the close of my interview with the Beaufort gentlemen who called on me, just before we started for Newbern. Capt West had been kind enough to arrange for our trip on the Railroad, & send a tug to take us Morehead City - a place in an anticipatory sort of way as the City exist as yet only on paper. A few houses had been built there before the war & people resorted to it as a watering place in some numbers. It was also the terminus of the Railroad & the natural commercial point for the surrounding country, as there only was the water deep enough to allow vessels of considerable size to come up to the wharves.

But I don�t mean to write Geography. We found a car waiting us & soon were on our way. It was very poor third class car, with only two or three whole panes of glass in its windows - but it was the best that could be furnished & we were content. The seats were bare boards no not exactly bare for they were covered with canvass so near in color & feel to boards that I actually did not know that the covering was there. �I thought her old gloves were on but twas her hands.� Just change this thus:� I thought I saw her hands but twas her gloves� & you get the idea. But if our car was poor the engine was good; our speed satisfactory; the road in fair condition; our company in good spirits; the air delightful; the day bright, and �all went merry as a marriage bell. We reached Newbern about four in the afternoon & found Gen. Palmer at the Depot - with Col. Heaton & Commissioner French, & several other gentlemen waiting our arrival. The General insisted on our accompanying him to his quarters on the banks of the Neuse - us now meaning my self & Nettie to whom add Dr. Fuller. Mr. Mellens, father & son, went with Mr. Heaton & Mr. Reid & Mr. Lowell to the Hotel. After washing off the dust a little Nettie & I rode with the General to look at the Fortifications, and the Freedmen�s Village. The former are very interesting & I should think very strong. Most of the works are on the West Bank of the Neuse; but there are some forts, one, which is, called after me Fort Chase on the East bank. The most striking feature in the defense is a rampart or earthen wall extending completely across the Peninsula formed by the Trent & the Neuse in the angle of which Newbern is situated - a very strong work making the town unassailable except by a very superior force. To these fortifications we have been twice or thrice indebted for the safety of Newbern against rebel attack. But the Freedmen�s village is more remarkable than the Fortifications. It is a very large collection of small rude huts with little enclosures surrounding small patches of ground. These are arranged in perfect order, with wide streets running through them. You might fancy it a city in Africa: only there was nothing like a public building. In these houses are congregated the blacks who have fled from their old masters, to the number of several thousand. I did not learn the exact number. All the able bodied are just now in Government employment. They built their huts themselves & in all respects sustained themselves, with comparatively insignificant aid. Many of them, I was told have accumulated small sums & if land was for sale at cheap rates could buy & would be glad to buy small farms & go to work as farmers. These will probably get on pretty well; but there are many who only live from hand to mouth & these will be in great trouble when the government discharges them, as it soon must.

The poor white refugees seem in a condition even worse than that of the blacks.

So far last night - this morning, Saturday the 6th after an excursion first to the ancient town of Beaufort and then to the Revenue Cutter ported here - I resume.

After our drive we returned to Gen. Palmers where we took tea. He lives in a house, which at the beginning of he war must have been the delightful residence of some well to do southerner. I heard the name but have forgotten it. Its front is on the Neuse, a broad beautiful stream, formerly dotted with the sails of a peaceful commerce, now thickly studded with vessels of war & their auxiliaries. On two sides there are fruit trees in full verdure & bearing & in the rear the servants quarters & kitchen. Every thing denoted substantial comfort, without luxury or great wealth. Col. Heaton, do you remember as Senator from Butler County during my first term as Governor� had invited me to his house after tea & therefore after tea we went - meaning this time Gen. Palmer, myself, & Mr. Lowell who seemed to go along simply to see that no harm came to me for he left at Mr. H�s door. Here I met Mr. French - you remember his description of you and the convict to whom you carried a pardon - and several other officers of the civil service. There were only two North Carolinians in the Room, one a rebel Colonel in rebel uniform on parole & the other an original Union man. The Colonel was now on terms; & when asked what terms replied �Such terms as are satisfactory to my State. �But he was by no means over confident. The �fight� is pretty thoroughly out of all the rebels, and the spirit can only be revived by gross injustice or very ungenerous treatment.

Nettie & I & Dr, Fuller slept at Gen. Palmers; and I slept well. The next morning, yesterday May 5, was one of the most beautiful I ever saw. The air was balm; countless birds were singing; the skies were bright. Nothing could exceed the charm. Then came a delightful breakfast and at 8 we were off for Beaufort again, Gen. P - going down with us to see General Sherman just up from Savannah. He had sent me word that he would be glad to see me & as we found his steamer lying at the Morehead City wharf we went directly on board. He was very hearty (in his) welcome & as frank & manly as possible. He feels very deeply wounded by the treatment he received. He says he never received a word of advice or instructions form any body as to the course to be pursued & that the order to Grant of March 2d forbidding all negotiations about civil matters was never communicated to him. All he knew was what Mr. Lincoln did at Richmond and that he said to himself when asked as to his wishes concerning Jeff. Davis that he could get out of the country �unbeknownst to him� he would not be sorry. Of course he thought he was pursuing the General line of policy approved by the President & was governed in what he did by a simple wish to prevent the dispersion of Johnson�s army into guerilla bands & to secure the earliest possible restoration of state organization & national authority. Our conversation was very interesting, though brief. He brought me and my party to the Wayanda in his tug and left us.

We hoped to get off immediately, but a strong gale from the southwest had sprung up & the Captain said it was simply useless to go out, for we should simply beat about without making any progress to the great discomfort of all on board. With this opinion it was idle to contend & we made up our minds to the situation hoping that the wind would go down before night. I spent the day writing the letter I have already sent you & in other writings & in reading. In the afternoon upon Capt. West�s invitation I went ashore & attempted a ride along the beach in his ambulance. It was a laughable apology fro a ride. The wind was very high & the tide was nearly full & coming in & the surf rolled in heavily, reducing the beach to the least possible strip, and often making it necessary to leave it & push through the sand. Most of our party left the wagon almost at starting & undertook to walk & pretty soon I did the same leaving only Nettie & Mrs. West with Capt. W. who drove. Dr. Fuller & I walked some distance along the beach & then back. The surf was magnificent. I have never seen any thing like it, or rather any thing equal to it.

As we returned we stopped at Mrs. West�s cottage we met General Sherman again, just returned from a walk to Fort Macon. There a little more chat & then back to the Wayanda & then after writing the first part of this letter to bed. Thus ended the 5th of May, our fifth day out. We are still weather bound.

This morning we expected surly to be on our way: but when I appeared on deck about light I was greeted with the same strong head wind - useless to go our. And so we still here - nit being now near ten at night. I have devoted the greatest part of the day to visit to the town of Beaufort & to talk with some of it�s leading citizens: and among them with the two who visited me yesterday. I found one gentleman, a Col. Taylor, who readily assented to the proposition that the best security of White Unionist would be found in the suffrages of colored unionist. No other was so ready: but I am told that the little town is talking over the matter quite vigorously.

This evening we had a visit from several gentlemen & ladies who brought us a basket of strawberries sent us by a Beaufort gentleman. But here I am.� good night.

Most affectionately

S. P. Chase