1. “Political Notes Croydon [New Hampshire] Feb 16, ‘52”

Octavo, 4 pages, two pages written in ink, with some portions in pencil which are difficult to read, but legible – excerpts include:

“… discussion a species of tyranny… Declaration of Gov. in defense of T. Jeff… dissolve the Union … must catch slaves … Obey God rather than men … condition of slaves improving … 5 or 6 million white men in the South as well as slaves Condition of slave is improving...”

There are two pages written in ink:

“Texan boundary Bill; Territorial Govs for N. Mexico and Utah; Admission of California as a state; Abolishing slave trade in the Dis. Columbia; Fugitive S. Law; Do the abolitionists admit the provision in the Constitution? If so, will they then admit of a measure to secure its enforcement; Granting that the Abolitionists could repeal the F.S. Law and liberate the Slaves – What would be the result?; for the sake of doing a small and doubtful good – as it right to hazard the commission of a great and certain wrong; quote Aaron Burr”

2. Manuscript verse on the Nebraska Bill

single sheet, measuring 8 x 10 inches, written in ink in a clean, clear, legible hand.

This undated verse is a critique of the over three thousand New England clergymen of all denominations and sects who opposed passage of the Nebraska Bill in March 1854:

“This wonderful Nebraska Bill has wrought

A miracle that ne’er was seen or thought:

Three thousand Priests of pure New England breed

Who never in one point of faith agreed

And never will again – that I’ll be sworn-

Have tuned their throats to one harmonious strain

And draw together both by bit and rein

Religion could ne’er bind them in one tether

But politics have brought these saints together

And knit them, not by Christian love of others,

But Christian hatred of their southern brothers,

And taught mankind to violate the law

Intestine quarrel and in civil war”

3. Partial manuscript speech or article, undated, but circa March 1864, when Grant assumed command of the Union Armies, inscribed on the verso of a partially printed and handwritten legal document signed by Ebenezer Batchelder, Sullivan, New Hampshire, September 1863.

“Peace. Peace: Conscription

Stop this fruitless bloodshed

Every step taken by the Abolition men at Washington only tends to confirm the impression of reflecting and patriotic men, that while the administration of the government remains in the hands of such impracticable and bloody thirsty fanatics, there is no hope for peace! And every day’s downward progress in this disgraceful fratricidal butchery only develops more clearly the fact that by force of arms the Union can never be restored. But the cry of “blood, more blood” is still the shibboleth of the abolition despots and their mean crawling jackals, down to the smallest pimp of a provost marshal. How the brute courage of men calling themselves rational can be kept up under the circumstances in which we find ourselves, is perfectly astonishing. Repulse, defeat, disaster, sums up the record of the Federal Abolition army for months past and while ‘On to Richmond’ is the last peg on which abolition folly and ignorance has hung its hopes misguided hopes, the army under Grant has been half demolished, and Richmond is no nearer being taken than it was three years ago. When will men pretending to the character of enlightened Christians awake from this terrible and bloody nightmare? But If the people are to tamely suffer this infernal strife to still go on, as the heartless shoddyites desire it should, more men will have to be supplied to the wholesale despotic butchers. Is it becoming a people who have prided themselves on their enlightened love of constitutional freedom to silently submit to the encroachments of this bloody despotism which worse than like the highway robber, demands not only our money but our lives and the lives of our children?

Has the time not fully come when forbearance has ceased to be a virtue, and when the strong voice of a disenthralled people should be heard saying to them …”