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MAKING AMENDS FOR INSULTING REFERENCE
TOWISE IN “DEMOCRATIC UNION”
95
●
BUCHANAN, JAMES. Autograph Letter Signed, to later Confederate General
Henry AlexanderWise, explaining that he was away and could not have prevented the publi-
cation of a euglogy for President Polk that contains an insulting reference to Wise, describes
the author of the eulogy sympathetically, and invites Wise for a visit. 1 page, 4to, ruled paper;
inlaid, faint toning at right edge, folds. (TFC)
Wheatland, 1 October 1849
[500/750]
“
My attention was directed . . . to your communication to the Union in reference to an expression
employed by Mr. Hutter in his eulogy on the late President. Had I been at home when this was prepared
or delivered, I think I may say it certainly would not have contained the justly offensive statement to
which you take exception. . . . I never knew . . . that the eulogy had any reference to yourself. . . .
[O]ur friendly relations . . . it is my anxious desire to preserve as long as we both shall live. . . .
“
Mr. Hutter no longer resides in Lancaster. He sometime since removed to Baltimore where he con-
ducts a Lutheran paper. He became religious in consequence of domestic affections. . . . He is an
amicable man. . . .”
Henry Alexander Wise (1806-1876) was a Virginia lawyer and politician who served 6 terms in
Congress, fought in the CivilWar as a Confederate Major General, and who, as Governor of Virginia,
signed the death warrant of John Brown.
Edwin Wilson Hutter (1813-1873) was editor of the Harrisburg
Democratic Union
and
Lancaster Intelligencer and Journal
, private secretary to James Buchanan during Polk’s presidency,
and became a Lutheran preacher in the last decades of his life.