Headquarters Berdan’s U. S. Sharpshooters,
February……..
Dear Mrs. Brigadier: For why should we not say so, when we know it will be so? Why this timidity of expression in time of war? . . . What is age, time, aeons, space, blood, prejudice, quite-another-arrangement-made-by-your-mother, or any other triviality? . . .
I love wedding cake. . . .
P. S. The night caps. Doctor Snelling had just come up from the hospital tent, after making his evening rounds, anxious and disturbed because of the want of just such! On account of the gale, the fires couldn’t be well kept up; but the patients could keep warm in bed as to bodies. Heads, however, were unprotected; and the Doctor had instructed the nurses to capitate the men with their stockings, in want of night caps. Just then I entered the tent with your caps. All was gladness. You quieted minds, warmed heads, perhaps saved lives! I say there is a singular patness, appositeness in your composition. . . . Even the woman to whom my affections are irrevocably pledged might learn a thing or two from you. What more can I say?
This from a tent and with coldest fingers. I don’t repine. Yesterday half the tents were blown down, but the cherub left mine standing. . . . Having immediate use for blankets for sick men, I send down Burr of my Company for the three or four which you said last evening I could have. Our surgeon says that the colored women nurses will be welcome. You say you will “send them out.” If you can’t, please inform bearer to that effect. When they come let them report to Dr. Marshall, Surgeon of the 1st Regiment Sharpshooters. Trusting you are blithe, I am, etc.
P. S. I address the envelope to you by your maiden name
