Charles Francis Adams, Jr., to his father
Hartwood Church, Va., October 5, 1863
In addition to moving they have again put me on duty as Judge Advocate of a Court Martial. Accordingly I now have no time to write to anyone or to get through the necessary business of my company, for on the march and in campaign I am on duty and the moment we get into camp for a day or two the Court is convened and I am busy from morning to night preparing business, taking notes, examining witnesses and expounding military law. Thus I have little time enough to call my own, as for three weeks I have been soldier one day and lawyer the next, coming in for every discomfort of duty, both routine and extra, with none of the advantages of either, and with little opportunity to take care of myself or think of my friends.
We broke camp at Warrenton about the 12th of last month and have been wanderers ever since. Finally where have we landed? Did you read the heading of my letter? The last of May, with a light heart and hoping never to see it again, I turned my back on Hartwood Church. Now here, early in October, as the result of four months of suffering, peril, anxiety and labor, which has used up one out of every two of the officers and men of the regiment, we find ourselves returned for picket duty to that very Hartwood Church. It is bitter! The summer is over and we have just held our own. We have not advanced one foot in Virginia! Just here, all last winter we shivered in mud, ice and snow through short days and interminable nights. From this spot we went out full of hope in April and again in May, and now in October we have come back with, I imagine, much the same feelings with which battered, disappointed old men walk up the steps of their old university. As it can’t be helped we must make the best of it and it would be unfair to make our lack of progress the test of our success. We have completely foiled the best army and the ablest Generals of the Confederacy in its greatest effort and the fact that we hold our own here is no small item in the estimate of our general progress. . . .
