AUTOGRAPH LETTER SIGNED by the abolitionist journalist CHARLES TABER CONGDON regarding his articles including one regarding disunion.
1860100131<p>Oct. 1860. Oct. 1860. Very good. - Over 115 words penned on 8 inch high by 4-7/8 inch wide creamy white paper with an embossed mark at top left. The abolitionist journalist C.T. Congdon writes that "I send the IIe Act in Disunion - the Ist went forward this morning. Together both pretty much exhaust the subject". He goes on to bemoan the delay "you might have it sooner if government would give this little abolition town another daily mail." He asks the recipient to please send him the "Knickerbocker for November. I have a little trifle in it - 'Will you dine with me'." Closing with the wishes "Buena notte!" Congdon signs himself with an abbreviated signature which one can only guess is "ChTC" and concludes with a postcript about the illegibility of another reporter's handwriting. The letter is mounted with glue from the verso onto a 8-1/4 inch high by 5-1/4 inch wide yellow paper. It is identified in an unknown hand on the verso: "C. T. Congdon / Oct 1860". Very good.</p><p>The journalist poet and abolitionist Charles Taber Congdon 1821-1891 started his career by cleaning floors and delivering newspapers for the New Bedford Courrier. He went on to work as a reporter for the Daily Register and an editor at Daily Bulletin and the Daily Mercury before Horace Greeley personally invited him to come work at the New York Tribune in 1857. He came to be known as "Greeley's right hand man" and was listed by Louis Star as one of the Tribune reporters who "lived to destroy slavery root and branch". While working at the Tribune Congdon also published articles in "Vanity Fair" the "North American Review" and the "Knickerbocker Magazine". Congdon published recollections as well as poetry including "The Warning of War" in 1862.</p><p>RARE.</p> [Oct. 1860].
