LETTERS OF GEORGE CALEB BINGHAM 203
LETTERS OF GEORGE CALEB BINGHAM
TO JAMES S. ROLLINS
EDITED BY C. B. ROLLINS
PART VI
LETTERS: DECEMBER 9, 1871—SEPTEMBER 28, 1873
Kansas City Dec 9 1871
Maj J. S. Rollins
My dear Sir,
Your favor of yesterday reached me this morning.
I regret to hear of the continued illness of our Couzin Sallie
but sincerely trust that the care and comfort of home will
soon give her relief. I hear nothing from Sartain and do not
know what to make of his protracted delay and continued
silence. I have written to him twice since I saw you urging
him to let me know, if possible the exact condition of the
work, and when I might certainly expect it, that I might
make my arangements accordingly, but though weeks have
passed since I wrote, I get nothing further from him. Can
it be possible that he is tampered with? I know nothing of his
politics, and as Ewing has learned through his friends, that the
work is being executed by Sartain, it is just begining to be a
slight suspicion in my mind that he may have stronger inducements to destroy the plate than to complete it.1 You
saw the last letter he wrote, in which he stated that the
plate would be entirely complete in four or five days. That
was in October, and nothing since can be had from him.
If I do not hear from him in the course of a week, I think I
had better go to Philadelphia and see what he has done,
and if the engraving should be nearly done, wait for it and
watch it, and if not, take one of the paintings and go to work
^his was an unjust and unfortunate suspicion on the part of Bingham.
(See: Missouri Historical Review, Vol. 33, No. 1, October, 1938, p. 65, n. 23;
p. 76, n. 34.)
