-To O’Mahony from Rev. Ed O’Flaherty-November 19, 1861

19 Nov. 1861, 6 Centre st, New York. 'My dear friend', has received his note of yesterday morning, needed its assurance of his welfare, was uneasy that he hadn't come to New York on Saturday night, waited for him at Sweeny's until 12 o'clock, when about to leave met some military friends and did not get home until 3 a.m.

'I am no less anxious to see you than you are to see me; for I feel we are on the verge of another crisis while I have not help enough in the ranks of the I.R.B. to meet it. In other words, the weight of almost everything is thrown upon my shoulders, so that I have not only to think, write, and diplomatize for the organization but I must in many instances do the duty of the subordinate officers, or the work will not be done or, if done, done badly. I feel this the more now as vast numbers of my best men have gone to this infernal war, while not a few of them have gone home to Ireland.

'Now, my friend, I need men with me like yourself, who are anxious to see the work done as I am myself and who, if I should fail in my duty or die, the affair undecided, would carry it out themselves to its legitimate end. I have striven for this all along but in very very few instances have I succeeded. I attribute my failure to many causes, such as the apathy, if no worse, of Young Ireland and the hostility of its flunkees wherever they are, the opposition of many of the priests, the malignities and lies of the leaders of a certain body, powerful in numbers and brute force in this city, who have been all along stabbing me and the I.R.B. in the dark, wherever their correspondence has reached. Now under those circumstances my friends must be on the alert and prove at least as active as their enemies and mine or we cannot go ahead, and the new energy infused into some [of] our people by the Rev. Mr [Edmund] OT[l]aherty' [Remainder of letter missing].