_Washington, March 22, 1861._ DEAREST MOTHER--I feel quite bad to hear
that you are not well--have a pain in your side, and a very bad cold. Dear
Mother, I hope it is better. I wish you would write to me, or Jeff would,
right away, as I shall not feel easy until I hear. I rec'd George's
letter. Jeff wrote with it, about your feeling pretty sick, and the pain.
Mother, I also rec'd your letter a few days before. You say the Browns
acted very mean, and I should say they did indeed, but as it is going to
remain the same about the house, I should let it all pass. I am very glad
Mat and Jeff are going to remain; I should not have felt satisfied if they
and you had been separated. I have written a letter to Han, with others
enclosed, a good long letter (took two postage stamps). I have written to
George too, directed it to Knoxville. Mother, everything is the same with
me; I am feeling very well indeed, the old trouble of my head stopt and my
ears affected, has not troubled me any since I came back here from
Brooklyn. I am writing this in Major Hapgood's old office, cor. 15th and F
streets, where I have my old table and window. It is dusty and chilly
to-day, anything but agreeable. Gen. Grant is expected every moment now in
the Army of the Potomac to take active command. I have just this moment
heard from the front--there is nothing yet of a movement, but each side is
continually on the alert, expecting something to happen. O mother, to
think that we are to have here soon what I have seen so many times, the
awful loads and trains and boat loads of poor bloody and pale and wounded
young men again--for that is what we certainly will, and before very long.
I see all the little signs, geting ready in the hospitals, etc.; it is
dreadful when one thinks about it. I sometimes think over the sights I
have myself seen, the arrival of the wounded after a battle, and the
scenes on the field too, and I can hardly believe my own recollections.
What an awful thing war is! Mother, it seems not men but a lot of devils
and butchers butchering each other.
Dear mother, I think twenty times a day about your sickness. O, I hope it
is not so bad as Jeff wrote. He said you was worse than you had ever been
before, and he would write me again. Well, he must, even if only a few
lines. What have you heard from Mary and her family, anything? Well, dear
mother, I hope this will find you quite well of the pain, and of the
cold--write about the little girls and Mat and all.