Hall’s Hill, Fairfax County, I’a.,
Friday eve., Jan. 17, 1862.
Dear Sister L.:—
“The long and weary months pass by” and still we camp in old Camp Porter, or, as it was called before our new tents were up, Camp Leslie.
For several days the weather has been so stormy that we have had but little drill. We have had some two inches of snow and then rain and sleet, making everything so slippery that it stopped all military operations.
You will ask what we have busied ourselves about. In the daytime we sit round the tents, reading, telling stories, grumbling about the rations, discussing the prospects of marching, cursing the English about the Mason and Slidell affair, expressing a willingness to devote our lives to humbling that proud nation, and talking of this, that and the other. Those whose tastes incline them that way are playing with the “spotted papers,” but you will be glad to know that not one game of cards has been played in our tent since I lived in it or in the old one, either, and more than that, I have not played a game since I’ve been in the U. S. service. I don’t know as I am principled against it so much, but I don’t know how to play and don’t care to learn. I spend much time in writing. The boys laugh at me for writing so many letters, but I think it is as good a way of spending time as many others.
I have thought I would send you a present. Nothing less than my French comb. It is a singular thing, according to our notions, but I have no doubt it is a good one. Its value is nothing, however, except that which attaches to it as a soldier’s comb and all the way from France. I don’t know but some young ladies might consider it an insult for a young man to send them a fine comb. You can feel just as you please about it.
The individual, if there be any one in the army more thought of than any other, the one so long waited for by the boys with emaciated portemonnaies, has arrived. We were called to sign the pay-roll about 4 p. m. yesterday, and by midnight seven companies were paid and the rest of us by 9 o’clock this morning. That is rather quick work I call it.
I little thought when I crossed the Long Bridge last September that I would be so long here with no chance of meeting the enemy. But so it is. It seems to us very slow business, this crushing out the rebellion. I do not know but our leaders know best, but it seems to us very dull business, waiting for the rebels to be conquered by kindness. Our President is altogether too tender-hearted, too much afraid of touching the rebels in their tender spot— their niggers. General Sherman, whom he has sent to South Carolina, is such another bugaboo. He has done nothing except to land there. If Jim Lane had been sent there with permission to whip them the best he could, he would have had South Carolina used up by this time, Charleston and Savannah in our possession and a good foothold for our forces. But no, it would not do to go to work so. This is not a war against slavery, but for the Union. We must preserve the Union, but not touch slavery. Away with such nonsense, I say, and the soldiers all say so. Give us a haul-in-sweep of their niggers, their houses, towns, and everything, only conquer them quickly.
