Culpeper CH Mar 15 / 63
My Darling
Wife;
I recd your
dear letter of Mar 12th only today.
I have already written how much I was disappointed at finding you had
left Richmond -- & I told Sam Hairston expressly to tell you not to
be in a hurry about going to Danville -- & afterwards wrote to you that I
would be going to Culpeper on this ct martial.
The letter I suppose never reached you.
The mails somehow are very unreliable.
My Dear one,
as Providence has so placed our lives as to be much separated, it is due to me
& to yourself that you should endeavor to be cheerful, & contented, if
you dote on me too much I will be taken from you – think of me as the hard
case you know I am and then you wont miss me so much.
I shall
greatly prize that dear wreath, associated as it is with my Dear darling’s
thoughts of her absent one & her fingers’ handiwork – I know
it will look pretty to me.
I sent the
memorandum you left, about a week ago & it is no doubt in Balt. now. I shall send the other also but to a
different person. I have not yet recd
the letter you sent to Fredericksburg.
I ran up to Gordonsville the other day & while there saw a portion
of the wedding party referred to in a former letter – Jack Garnett – Starke
& one or two others all well used up.
Cousin Nannie desired her best love to you & said she was going to write. I got one of your Carte-de-visites from Maria
who had them – it is good except the complexion is entirely too dark and the
expression so serious that it amounts to sadness. The daguerr is better.
The next time you go to Richmond Do have one colored for me &
wearing a smile.
How is that
Dear little boy – I send a letter for him written by little Turner Hill. Both children here are sick, have had
scarlet fever, but are convalescent.
Major Hill is here. They often
speak of you in the kindest
In returning
from Gordonsville which I send y I saw Nan Pat on the platform at Orange
C.H. she inquired very affectionately of you and this evening I received this
note with some nice candy. I was at the
Episcopal service here to-day & heard a first rate sermon. It is raining hard – weather here is very
uncertain, it is raining hard now.
Many thanks
for the flowers. I hope to get the
Loudon bundle in a day or two.
Wat resigned –
Price will succeed him – FitzHugh will be transferred to the QMDept -- &
some one else not yet decided upon will take his place. I have not yet concluded who shall be my
aide in Channing’s place. Give much
love to Ma & Vic & write often –
Ever Yours