Charles Francis Adams, Jr., to his father
H.Q. 5th Mass. Cav’y
Point Lookout, Md., October 15, 1864
When I should have written last Sunday I was away. Major Adams of this regiment was sick and I took him for a change of air up to Leonardtown and stayed with him a few days to nurse him. Leonardtown is a small dead-alive one-horse town, located on the Potomac some thirty miles from here. After three days experience of it I am prepared to say that its inhabitants love cards, hate the Union and drink whiskey even as is becoming in the constituents of the great Harris — the “high-toned” pugilist of Chicago. There is a small military station at this interesting place, and here I tarried in a regular Maryland tavern, and through two hideous nights was utterly consumed by bedbugs. Around this tavern congregate the loafers of Leonard-town throughout the day, and in this happy region no white man does any work. I speedily found that these denizens easily and naturally divided themselves into two classes — those who were always sick and those who were never sober — and this division gave to all conversation a pleasing variety, the subject of discussion with the first class being as to the time of the last “chill,” that with the second the expediency of the next drink. Here I went to one evening entertainment, besides various oyster bakes, cider-presses and other excuses for the consumption of whiskey, and was complimented by one lady on my resemblance to my grandfather — “the brow, he was so bald.” Here I talked rum, horse and politics, and, unlike the rest, having a higher rank to sustain, confined myself strictly to a gallon of whiskey a day. Contriving thus to preserve a sober dignity about me, I tarried three days, and, on my return to camp, found waiting for me your letters. Beyond this I believe nothing has occurred to mark the time since I last wrote. Point Lookout is not an exciting place, nor does the routine life of a regiment in garrison furnish much material for letters. . . .
Meanwhile Wednesday’s steamer carried out to you the great October elections. Pennsylvania might have been better, but I presume the result, as a whole, may be considered as decisive of the Presidential struggle. At any rate a gain of twenty members of Congress in three States would formerly have been considered significant. As to this soldiers’ vote, I see McClellan’s organs count greatly on his popularity in the Army to lessen there the Union majority. They may be right, but I have never seen any signs of it. At present my means of information are not very good and I cannot tell how the Army feels, but my impression is that the October vote will foreshadow exactly the November vote. Soldiers don’t vote for individuals; they don’t vote for the war; they have but one desire and that is to vote against those who delay the progress of the war at home; they want to vote down the copperheads. The vote just taken reflects this feeling and this only, and in November, you will see a repetition of the same thing. McClellan has no popularity in the Army except among a few officers in his old Army, and these are now growing surprisingly few. In the West he has no friends. In November I do not think he will poll one vote out of six. So the election according to all precedent may be considered as no longer an open question. If this be really so, for me, I draw a long breath and say, thank God! Is it not wonderful! One after another how miraculously we have been tided over the shadows and piloted through the rapids. Now the end of a Presidential election sees our enemy downcast, and only in sweat and agony anywhere holding his own, while we, flushed with success, find ourselves more firmly pledged to war than at any previous time. Thus the very Presidential election which we all dreaded so greatly and deplored as an unmitigated evil, bids fair to turn out the most opportune of occurrences. Before your answer to this reaches me the whole struggle will be over and our course for the next two years made clear. Before that time, too, Grant says he will have Richmond. Truly, we live in great times and, for one, I thank God that it has been given to me to see such things. . . .
