I don’t know how accurate the folowing letter is, but it would seem to have been quite a propaganda coup for a Democrat paper, especially during the 1864 presidential campaign. The Lincoln administration was too abolitionist for this letter-writing Republican editor who went to war. And he can only get accurate news from Democratic publications.
From a Seneca County, New York newspaper in 1864:
A Soldiers Letter.
The following letter is from the editor of a Republican paper, published in Wyoming county in this State. The letter was dated near Petersburg, July 8th, 1864:
“Northern coat of arms”
Dear Wife. – A great many want to know, I suppose, how the last battle went. My answer is, invariably, that we have had but one, and that commenced on the 5th of May last. The soldiers all console themselves with the belief that this season will end the war, and I believe so myself. If we can’t whip them by fall we never can. The soldiers will stand it no longer. They will go for a new administration. In fact, I have changed my views from what they were when I left home. There is too much nigger in the present administration, and too many lies published in newspapers. I find if I want to approximate anywhere the truth, I have to take it from Democratic newspapers.
Inclosed you will find a silver dollar, (if it ever reaches you) which I send to the little “cherub,” and one which I prize quite highly for two reasons; and one is, because they are scarce, and the other is because it is a relic from the battle field near Petersburg, and was once the, [sic] property of some Reb. I picked it up shortly after the battle. H.A. TIFEANY.
You can read about the 1864 political cartoon at the Library of Congress
