Abolitionist and Union Army officer (1838-1903) who received the Medal of Honor for his actions during the Battle of Baxter Springs; he later became a successful lecture manager whose clients included Mark Twain, Winston Churchill, and Henry Morton Stanley. TLS signed “J. B. Pond,” four pages two sets of adjoining sheets, 4.5 x 7, personal letterhead, August 9, 1900. Letter to American dramatic critic and author William Winter, in part: "I thank you for your very gracious letter and the pains you have taken in giving me the data concerning your life. I wish I were endowed with a vocabulary that would express my love and appreciation of such a friend, but what is a fellow to do what never went to school in his life and has to take everything as he has picked it up around? I want to tell you, my friend, that Joe Jefferson and Henry Irving would certainly appreciate what you wrote to me, just as much as anybody else in this world—they are broad minded men—and many others would appreciate it because it brings the breadth of your mind right out there in full relief, and shows that you rightly estimate the highest intellectual realms that God has created for those who appreciate his boundless gift…Now, as for your detractors, my dear friend: why notice them? You remind me of a letter I found when I was rummaging through an old drawer where a lot of Mr. Beecher's letters had accumulated. I thought I had 393 of Mr. Beecher's letters to me, but in cleaning out that drawer I found another. It was in reply to one I had written him in reference to an abusive editorial in the Boston 'Journal' on Mr. Beecher's sermon on Evolution. I suggested to Mr. Beecher that he ought to reply to it, and here is what he wrote: 'Reply to that Journal man! Bombard a bumble bee with a battery of artillery! Evolution has come to stay!'" In fine condition. Accompanied by the original mailing envelope.
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