December 15th, 1864.
Another sweet messenger from home, dated December 4th. It seems to have been quite a long time on the way; ten days in a time of comparative quiet.
I do not know how it may be with those removed from these busy scenes of strife, but, with me, the mighty present swallows up the events of the past and almost obliterates them from memory. Movements which, in process of execution, claim all our attention and from which the grandest results are anticipated, become, when past, but as a “watch in the night.”
All eyes are now turned on Sherman, awaiting news of him in breathless suspense. At the same time movements are on foot here that will eventually compel the evacuation of Petersburg.
Unfavorable weather has caused a short delay, but the storm is over and our troops are on the march again. Meanwhile, I can wait, feeling that “the night is far spent and the dawn is at hand,” doing the little I can for my fellows and my country; ambitious only that I may be worthy the good opinion of my loving wife, so tenderly, confidingly expressed in this, her last letter. Courage, dear one; yet a little longer must we toil and struggle on. Our paths are now converging; they soon will meet, in blissful union; then, hand in hand, together will we pass down the declivity of life, purified and made better by these sore trials.
So we are to have another dinner—a Christmas dinner—prepared by the kind friends at home expressly for the Seventeenth Regiment, the whole to be superintended by Mr. Winegar, of Grass Lake. Mortimer has rejoined his regiment. I heard of the event last night, and early this morning started in quest of him. His regiment is in the inner line of works, about five miles from here, near a large fort called the Crater, from the manner in which it belches fire and smoke and iron missiles from its huge guns. I found him looking well, though a little thin, and was glad to see him, for had he not just returned from home—my home? Had he not seen and conversed with my loved ones, only a few days instead of years ago? And then, those little articles of comfort, direct from home; precious mementoes of a wife’s devotion and tender remembrance. Is it any wonder as I clasped his hand, my eyes were dim with the mists of pleasing memories?
I will not attempt to picture the pleasure I experienced as I looked on that on which my wife’s dear eyes had rested, watered, perhaps, with bitter tears; in handling that which was fashioned by her hands. And those towels! Soon as I returned I hung one beside the door of my little house. How homelike it did look! And then I washed me very carefully, lest I stain its snowy whiteness and dried me on her towel, as I used to do at home. Can I ever wear those stockings? For her dear sake I will, although it seems like sacrilege.
I could only spend two hours with Mortimer, but we made the best possible use of the time. During that time I heard more gossip than in the past two years.
He told everything “I said and they said,” with the variations; some agreeable, some otherwise. I asked him what he thought of our darling baby, Nell. “Oh, it’s quite a decent-looking young one, but no better than other folks’s.” He said: “Aunt Sene asked me if she wasn’t the handsomest grandchild they had, and I told her ‘No, Flora was.'” Then, fearing he had shocked my sensibilities, he apologized by saying: “Flora has got to be a darned purty girl; you never see anybody change as she has.”
I saw Billy Richardson. He says he can go on picket and fire his “hundred rounds” at nothing as well as anybody.
