Dato: 22. januar 1864
Fra: Marcus Spring   Til: H.C. Andersen
Sprog: engelsk.

Eagleswood (Perth Amboy) New Jersey Jany 22 / 64.

My dear friend: Hans Christian Andersen

I hope you have not wholy forgotten us - and that we may even call you friend, still. I have many & many times wished to write you, but - the days are full of urgent calls on head, heart and hand, and now, when pages are full of thoughts and memories ask to be written, I must for want of time confine myself to a simple matter of business -

We are getting up a great fair, but for our noble Sanitary Commission which has so wisely distributed during our whole war and often to both sides of the battlefields, to the wounded & dying soldiers the millions upon millions of dollars of comfort the free gifts of all our Northen & Western people - men, women & children - rich & poor - in every town, village & hamlet - have worked & saved & given from their abundance & from their poverty - for the suffering & wounded soldier and still we want more.

I will not doubt that your kind and generous heart will respond to the appeal I now make that you will spend an hour or two in writing some autographs to be sold at this fair - also selecting from your correspondence such notes, letters and some envelopes or scraps in the handwriting of persons of note, which could have a money value here in this far off, new land (& newly renovated land, we feel that it is to be. )

A few words of good cheer on little strips of paper, a few inches square, signed by your name, so widely loved and cherished / in thousands of households here would each sell for what would send comfort to more than one brave fellow suffering in the cause we at least deemed sacred - and trust that, now that the result of the war - which we anti-slavery people, all along, deemed inevitable, is seen to be the extermination of slavery, and the purification of our national character - few enlightened friends in the old world will fail to find at least, an excuse for a republic's going to war. - A work I admit, very uncongenial to my own heart & hopes for our land - For my theory has been that when free speech & press & general education prevailed in a true republic, war need never come. But alas! free speech & press & education nearly vanished from one half of our land these many years, of the demon tyrant slavery! Thank God we have him "on the life" & he will not long pollute the land! When once extinguished our whole people will, reunite on a solid basis of lasting peace for there is no ill will, & no hindrance to entire magnanimity in the North towards the South / excuse this ... .... rebellion and so soon as slavery which is synonymous with the rebellion is ...hilated, a great magnanimity + generosity - forth on the lease ... will flow toward ..erring brethren of the fourthe that will convince he World that this has not been a war of ambition or hatred - on our part. I will do the ... the notice + say, that it has been with the great map as they begin to see an honest delusion, in their fort.. by a small number of ambitions demagogies.

If you my dear friend have not read the noble letter of those four noble Frenchmen - Laboulage Martyn, Gasparin, ... chin on at .. Loyal Leage. Pray do so - the ... advice, precisely conform to the vie.. I have held from the first. + I think are just + wise - In your Little ... if you shall be so kind as to send them, preay write some good inspirings wrods to cheer + strenghen our national faith + courage. We have a geat task on our hands - the elevation & / salvation of the milions of african freed men + of more millions of dep... Whites of the Earth - who have t... the malign influences of slavery have lacked the education of our new England free school system - which we will soon spred on all that lovely region + which now is taking root in all the conquered Places - and the healing of the social + political breaches made by such a gigantic struggle - constitute no slight ... But we are strong and hopeful + full of faith that God Means this nation well, yet a Blessing to the .... and we suffer rejoiceingly.

God bless you. Write soon, if the time is short - and if after a while you can send a second parcel in a week or two - or three even after the fair opens (March). This will not come amiss, as it will last some weeks - I send you a printed matter about it - We are grandfather + grandmother our only daughter, .... has a little son willl you not come to see us?

Very truly yours

Marcus Spring

Tekst fra: Solveig Brunholm