Garrison is 56
Dec. 10, 1861
Upon presentation of a broacloth suit, Garrison writes to Helen and the children. ” ..thanks to their affectionate remembrance, never has he had a birthday in which he was so well suited before. There are many, he is aware, out of his family, — and especially in the land of Secession, — who would like to give him, on any day, ‘a good dressing,” but not in the same sense, nor according to the same pattern. For example — they would be pleased to see him wearing a ‘coat of tar and feathers’; but this fine broadcloth one, he thinks, is much to be preferred as a matter of fitness and comfort. Come what may, however, he does not mean to play the ‘turn-coat’, even though somebody has discovered that ‘one good turn deserves another’. He cannot find words to express his love for his wife and children, and the amount of blessedness they have afforded him …” 1