108 A SAGA OF THE SEAS 
This letter by one of the inner government at Washington 
during the Civil War makes possible a glimpse behind the 
scenes. ‘The tone is reassuring and steadfast; not many per- 
sons in the country were so calm and far-seeing as the Secre- 
tary of the Treasury. It is difficult to realize now that emanci- 
pation of the slaves was a subject of such difference of opinion 
in the North, but history shows that the Washington govern- 
ment fearfully evaded the issue of slavery during the early 
stages of the War. The emancipation of the slaves as a war 
measure, however, was followed later by amendments to the 
Constitution making their freedom permanent. 
When Gladstone, Chancellor of the Exchequer, had read 
Chase’s letter, he wrote to Field: ‘“‘As respects Mr. Chase, he 
is, if I may say so, a brother in this craft; and I have often 
sympathized with his difficulties, and admired the great ability 
and ingenuity with which he appears to have steered his 
course.” In the same letter, Gladstone acknowledged with 
interest a letter ‘full of feeling” which Field’s daughter Alice 
had written her mother concerning a visit to the headquarters 
of the Army of the Potomac. Gladstone liked such uncon- 
ventional descriptions. The letter is interesting even today, 
as the fresh impressions of a naive girl impressed by uniforms 
and flags but saddened by the realities of war. 
Alice Field had spent two days and nights at the front in 
view of the enemy’s signals, not far from Bull Run in Virginia. 
“The whole country is desolated,’ she wrote. Her party 
lunched with a general, who was very courteous. “This tent 
is charming. . . . Our lunch consisted of ham sandwiches, 
pickles, jelly, ale, and tea.’ Her quarters one night were in 
an old mansion still occupied by two saddened Virginia ladies, 
one of whom had lost a son in the Confederate army. She 
wrote: “We felt so much for these proud women, obliged to 
receive Northern strangers, and unable to conceal their fallen 
fortunes, that we did our best to heal their wounded self-love. 
After tea we dressed for the ball. I wore the blue tissue, the 
