Camp at Stephenson’s Depot, Virginia,
December 20, 1864.
Dear Uncle: — We broke camp at Camp Russell yesterday at early daylight and marched to this place on the railroad from Harpers Ferry towards Winchester. It rained, snowed, “blew, and friz” again. Awful mud to march in and still worse to camp in. But today it is cold and none of us got sick, so far as I know. Our First Division took cars to join Grant. It is said we shall follow in a day or two. This is not certain, but I shall not be surprised if it is true. I prefer not to go, and yet one feels that it is almost necessary to be present at the taking of Richmond. I am content, however, to go. I believe in pushing the enemy all winter if possible. Now that we have a decided advantage is the time to crowd them. Things look as if that were to be the policy.
I like the new call for troops. What good fortune we are having. If Sherman takes Savannah and then moves north, this winter will be the severest by far that our Rebel friends have had.
I received today your letter of the 14th enclosing Uncle Austin’s about the sad fate of Sardis. I will do what I can to get further information, but we are no longer with the Nineteenth Corps and may not again see them.
I am sorry to hear you have a severe cold. I am getting more nervous when I hear of your taking cold. Don’t try to visit Lucy or anybody else in the winter.
I am afraid I shall not get to visit you this winter.
Sincerely,
R. B. Hayes.
P. S. — There is a short but tolerably fair account of the battle of Winchester in Harper’s Monthly of January. It is written by somebody in the Nineteenth Corps. You will hardly read it with such emotion as I do. The writer calls our force “the Eighth Corps.” When you read on the 199th page his account of our battle-yell as we advanced, and of the Rebel musketry which met it, you will remember that I led the advance brigade of the advance division, and that perhaps the happiest moment of my life was then, when I saw that our line didn’t break and that the enemy’s did.
23d. — It is pretty certain [that] we do not go to Grant; probably in a week or two to Cumberland or West Virginia.
S. Birchard.
