2 pages, on bifolium, 5 x 8 in. Addressed to Mrs. Mary Claflin, the wife of Governor William Claflin of Massachusetts.

"I needed to assurance from you to know that your husband had done for Mr. Revels all that hospitality or sympathy could suggest. I am glad to hear of Mr. Revel's success & of all the kindness he received. In this welcome I catch the triumph of a new civilization."

Hiram Rhodes Revels (1827-1901) was born a free person of color in North Carolina before his ordination by the AME church in 1845. He was a preacher until the Civil War began and served as an army chaplain for an African American regiment. Revels settled in Mississippi in 1866 and got involved in state politics, eventually becoming the first African American United States Senator in 1870. He was known as a gifted orator and a political moderate who favored equal rights for African Americans and amnesty for the former Confederates.

Charles Sumner served as a US Massachusetts senator, leading the anti-slavery movement in his state and the Radical Republicans in the US Senate. His famous "The Crime Against Kansas" speech nearly lost him his life as he decried slavery and insulted South Carolina Senator Andrew Butler. Butler's cousin, Preston Brooks, infamously attacked Sumner on the Senate floor, beating him with a cane.