Fort Wise Kansas
Mar 4th, 1861
My Dear Bro:
I am upon the
eve of departure on leave of absence of two months. I expect to reach Fort Riley by the 15th inst, and
will go as far east as St. Louis but no farther unless affairs in Va warrant me
in pursuing a different course. I
received your kind favor – and you reckon right when you say you know I will be
the first to join Va’s standard when she calls. I am too much distrait to write very coherently about anything
but, I do trust your ailments have entirely disappeard – and that your Dear
family still flourishes as the green bay-tree.
If Va remains in the Union I will start back here with my family about
the 12th of April – till which time my address will be Fort Riley.
I will thank
you to keep me advised of any movement likely to be taken by Va, and what you
think will be her probable course.
I hear glowing
accounts of my daughter & son – but the boy can never supplant La pet in my
affections.
Love & Kisses to all of ours –
Yours mo. Affectionately
J.E.B.Stuart
More from Riley –
Fort Riley K.T.
Mar 14th
I did not have
an opportunity of mailing the foregoing till I arrived here yesterday after a
very successful trip from Wise. I found
all well. The glowing descriptions of my
children were I find no exaggerations.
St George is I think much like Pa.
They say here he is very much like me.
We have a
tri-weekly mail here and I will “quietly & calmly await the march of
events” – I do not think Va will long hesitate about her final course – and the
moment she passes the ordnance of secession I will set out immediately for
Richmond & report in person to Gov Letcher unless I ascertain that my
services would be more needed at some other point in the south state.
How dignified
& imposing has been Jeff Davis’ course as President compared to
Lincolns. If no war ensue upon Va’s
secession I will quit the army and if I can obtain no desirable position in her
regular army I will resign and practice law in Memphis Tennessee. I am a Captain now by the vacancies
which have already occurred in the army, but I would rather be a private in
Va’s army than a General in any army to coerce her.
Col Cooke will
I think become a Missourian in the event of disruption as he is perhaps more
identified with that state than any other.
I hope you
will try to find time to jot me at least a line as to passing events in
Va. I do not approve of Gen’l Twiggs
course, nor do I approve of the President’s summary dismisal of the old
war-worn veteran as a “coward & traitor.” I have maintained from the first that Mr Buchanan’s policy ought
to have been to have resorted to withdraw the troops from the state as
soon as he ascertained that it had actually seceded, not necessarily
because he either endorsed or opposed the doctrine of secession itself, but
looking only at the fact of secession – as depriving the state of any
further protection by the Federal Government for which sole purpose the
troops were stationed within her limits.
Such a course would have been eminently pacific and conciliatory in its
tendency and effect and would have opened the way to adjustment – but the
vascillating course of old Buck coupled with the course indicated by the
President’s inaugural, placed the subject beyond compromise and sooner or later
Va. & the other border states will join the “Confederate States of the
South.”
You may
therefore know that I am making very small calculations on my making
realizing any thing out of my Captaincy, and that I am looking forward with
considerable certainty at resignation.
Give my love to all your family & tell Eliza to write to me. Also Bell & Lizzie. Give my best regards to Bolling Terry Haller
Bob Sayers Jno ditto – Joe Kent and many other friends in Wythe whose names
will occur to you very readily.
Wit
In haste
Most affectionately
J.E.B.Stuart
Flora &
Mrs C & Miss Julia join in love to you & yours –