| Petersburg |
| June 3rd 1864 |
| |
| My dearest Father,
{Moncure Robinson, internationally known RR
engineer and an early President of the Richmond, Fredericksburg &
Potomac RR; lived in the Philadelphia during the War} |
| |
| I wrote you a hastily written
letter from Wilmington telling you that the case before Judge Haliburton
had finally been decided in my favor for all stocks bonds dividends and
interest in your mane including that in the name of Edmund and Beverly,
and ordering the Receiver to pay ever the account resulting from the
sale of the shares of R{ichmond} and
Petersburg in Edmund's name that had been sold under the Sequestration
Act. The real estate is yet tied up, for the Receiver had not asked to
sequestrate that property, and it is still in your name. It is liable
for attachments that have been issued for your indebtedness. I wish for
obvious reasons to control this property which can be done in one of two
ways; either to ask the receiver to ask for a decree against it, obtain
a trial as speedily as possible and to claim it under the law that has
already given me the stocks etc, or to have the attachments assigned to
me instead of having them released when I pay your indebtedness. -- then
I could sell the land for the attachments & buy it in, & claim the
balance as your heir; Messrs Randolph and Myers have under discussion
these two plans. -- In the mean time I am trying to settle your debts. I
have already settled with Cousin Wirt and with the Fredericksburg
Company {Richmond, Fredericksburg & Potomac RR}
-- and I hold their acknowledgements that all of their claims
against you to the 1st of June 1864 are settled in full. My cousin Wirts
claim to which was added interest from an average date at 6 pr ct was
(Principal and interest was $3214. I paid it half in stocks viz 11
shares of R. F. & P. stock at 73 -- $803 & 11 shares Seabd
{Seaboard & Roanoke RR} stock 73 -- $803
and one half in cash (currency) 1608 $ 3214.-- |
| The Fredericksburg Co show by
their books that you owed them $60,665. & 51. You admit only $50,025. I
agreed to settle for the whole on condition that they should give me an
indemnity bond binding themselves to pay back to me any surplus I may
have paid them in the same style of payment with same interest as I paid
them on my learning from you fully in relation to what they claim was an
open account prior to your receiving the $50,025. This they did and I
settled with them. I enclose to you two papers, one showing their
statement of your account to Nov 1st 1861. The other showing where you
have been charged interest from Nov. 1st & and where they have allowed
it on dividends etc. as they fell due, the rate of interest being 6 pr
ct. This second paper will show you that the amount I settled for was
$70,375.47. I paid it one half in stocks viz 241 shares of R.F.&P. stock
at 73 $17,593.& one half of Seabd stock at 73 -- 17,593 & one half
in cash (currency) 35, 189.47 $ 70,375.47. |
| If this open account as shown
by No. 1 is incorrect please let me have a full statement of each wrong
item that I may be able to explain them fully to the Company and receive
back what I have overpaid. This large amount of cash that I paid was in
a great part back dividends & interest. I have written to Mr George
Rives & spoken to Dr Mills and I think they will both agree upon similar
items of settlement. Mr William Horner I have not been able to find & of
course I do not propose to settle with Mr Myers as I told him long since
that his moneys were held by you in Northern and English funds to his
credit. I think that he would prefer you to place them to his credit
with some safe London banker that he might be able to draw upon them
when he wishes it. |
| You will perceive that I have
adopted a different & I think to you a more advantageous terms of
settlement than what you proposed viz, the one half cash, when you
consider the condition of the currency, for your debts are being settled
with comparatively little sacrifice to your stock. Mr Chas Ellis of the
R. & Petersburg Rrd says that he sent to you in May 1861 two drafts on
the Post Office favor of Henry Seybert one for $1831.96 the other for
$1837.50 -- one of which he says you have admitted to have been
collected and he thinks you have collected the other. I have told him
that you have said nothing to me on this subject & that until you do or
until he can give me proof of the collection of these moneys I will not
admit his claim. I imagine that if you have received the amounts you
have paid them in dividends. Mr Ellis had attached your property but has
agreed to assign the attachment to me, and I have addressed him a letter
stating that on learning from you the true state of the case, if
anything is due I will assume the debt on the basis upon which I have
already settled with the Fredericksburg Company. I trust by watching
carefully to have little trouble with Goddins claim for the land
occupied by the Petersburg Company & I now think everything is in a fair
way of being settled. |
| I think now I can express to
you my dear father the great pleasure I feel in having been the means of
preserving your property for I think the means taken by me to have the
law passed by which it was preserved, and the subsequent management of
it was due to myself, and I trust the time is not far distant when I may
be able to express this to you in person & when I can return it to you.
Your income I have been using very freely for the cost of living is
enormous, at hotels $30 per day for board alone, and my accounts will be
very irregular & perhaps large amounts unaccounted for, for in the
service I have been unable to keep accounts. I deem this letter to be so
important that I have erased all names on the accounts, and I will
enclose it to Lady Eardley who will mail it from England. In replying to
it unless you have very sure means of sending to Maj. N. S. Walker at St
Georges, Bermuda, you had best send your letter to Lady E. to be
forwarded to me, and that I may have best chance of hearing from you
write in duplicate or triplicate. Lady E's address is care of George
Rooper Esqr 26 Lincoln's Inn Fields London. I have already written to
you that I was relieved from duty with Gen Breckinridge, and ordered to
report to the Quartermaster General & to take charge of the roads
between Richmond and Wilmington. The management of these roads is only
interfered with so far as is requisite to operate then as one line, and
I hope I will get along smoothly with their Prests and Supts but I am
determined to succeed if possible in what the Government have given me
to do, and as my powers from the Secy of War are very absolute I will
not hesitate to take absolute control of either road if it is necessary.
I have started to operate the line in two divisions from Weldon, but
when necessary I place the engines on either division. Fremont's road
and equipment are very much out of order and my most difficult duty will
be there. As a sort of desert to the affair I have resumed more active
supervision of the Seabd; this is well managed so far as concerns
Pendleton, but Wilson's neglect was never more shown than has been in
the last two years. Our cars and locomotives rented for one-fifty
prices, debts uncollected, & rents unprovided for. By the first of Sept
I hope to have our income trebled to what it was a month ago. I had a
meeting of the Board a few days ago & resolutions passed instructing Mr
W. to do certain things. At this time every suggestion I make to the
Directory is carried out, and on what is left to us on the Seabd my
views are final. Mr W. is so good natured & now does what he is told,
that I would dislike to cause his removal & now perhaps we could get no
one to fill his place. Of course I see a good deal of Mr Daniel and of
the affairs on his line. |
| Surely you have left me your
mantle. Whether or not I am able to fill it is another question, but it
is certain I have more to do with railroads than anyone in the
Confederacy. My work is very heavy and constant; I wish it was as
remunerative. It is a curious fact that all that I have made since I
commenced life has not sufficed for my support. I am fitting up a car
with kitchen office & washroom to live in from point to point. My line
is so long owing to the slow speeds that I would be very uncomfortable
otherwise, but in my own car I can move anywhere I please behind any
train. |
| Willie Myers and Dick Poor are
with Breckinridge in Lee's army. If anything happened to Willy I do not
think his father and mother would recover from it. You will have learned
of the result with Grant's now expected battle long before this reaches
you. In Richmond such confidence prevails that the result is scarcely
commented upon. I do not doubt that Grant will be foiled, but I am not
sanguine of a speedy peace. As the war goes on it seems to me the
Yankees are becoming more and more lost to all decency -- they must be
dogs -- & yet I have known so many persons in the North so well. Lately
everywhere they have gone they have gutted every gentleman's house; Mr
Caperton told me they had smashed the furniture in the houses in Monroe
Co even entering ladies wardrobes & tearing up their dresses & his
residence has not been an exception or is anywhere |
| {end of document in
the archive} |
| {Though the signature
page is missing, there is not doubt the signature would be:} |
| Jno M Robinson
{Captain & AQM} |
|