January 4th, 1864.
It has been very cold the past four days. The day before New Year’s was warm and rainy. Toward night the wind changed into the north, “with a snap to it,” as it does in Michigan sometimes. New Year’s morning was very cold—not so many degrees, I presume, by a score or two, as we frequently experience in Michigan—but quite as piercing to me as the coldest weather at home.
Today is warm as summer again. This is a delightful climate “overhead,” the coldest weather being about like October with us. But the mud is really fearful. The roads are next to impassable four months of the twelve. I could not be induced to live here. I have been in fourteen different states; in most of them have traveled quite extensively, and have seen nothing yet that excels Michigan. True, some states possess advantages that Michigan does not, but they lack in others. Whenever I have thought of a change of residence, my feelings rebel, and I can but exclaim, “Give me my own, my native land,” for such I regard Michigan.
