CASSIUS M. CLAY, "LION" - The Filson Historical Society

1957] Cassius M. Clay 127
Brutus if you will hereafter send me $500 on the 25th of every month,
unless I write you to the contrary, if it does not put you to too much
inconvenience. I have no doubt I can get an amount of money from
Mad. Johnson which would perhaps save you the trouble of borrowing!
What think you of it? I shall look for Ann on her way to Richmond
next week tell her. As the children are neither of them at home I send
Jerry with this note.
Adieu,
Yrs. affectionately,
M. J. Clay
P.S. Brutus I want $117 for City Tax if you please.
Monday, Lex. 28th Sept. '46
Dear Brutus.
I have seen Mr. Vaughan & received a letter from Seymour upon
the business of the True American & will ride down to see you as
soon as I am able. My little Cassius14 is not well now--as soon as his
health is again established I will come. Sallie Ann Goodloe & her husband15
are now quite ill with Fever. I have taken all their children
in charge until their recovery. Your mother is here waiting on her.
I have not heard from Mr. Smith's1° family... Tell Ann I received her
note and attended to it accordingly. I neglected to send the letter to
Miss Field1¢ as I promised Ann the morning she left & since then my
own children & the charge of Sallie Ann's together with sitting up with
my [son] four nights to alleviate his cough, visiting Sallie Ann as often
as possible & attending to the Paper has almost set me wild & I have
not thought of that promise except at times when it was impracticable
to attend to it . . . Seymour has sent me his bills. They amount to
$488.23-1/3 cents. As soon as convenient please send the check.
Love to Ann
Yrs affectionately
M. J. Clay
II
The decision as to what should be done about the True American
in the absence of Cassius in the war and the receipt of further
advices from him, was a heavy one for his wife and brother to make.
As the above correspondence clearly shows it was losing money at
the rate of $500 a month, an amount which could not readily be spared
in view of other obligations to be met. Factors which may have entered
into the decision were his wife's dread of debt as well as his brother's
lack of confidence in the Cincinnati business agent's ability to put the
paper on a paying basis. The correspondence warrants the construction