Harriet Roosevelt Woolsey to Jane and Georgeanna Woolsey.
New York, Dec. 2, ’63.
Dear Girls:—Charley’s rheumatism is better and yesterday he walked without his cane. When he gets on the doe-skins (the triumphs of art that Mother is now at work upon) and his india-rubber knee-cap, I think he will be all right. At any rate, well or not, I suppose it is better for him to go to Washington, for he worries, now that the army is moving and he not with it, and his leave expired. . . . He is pounding away at a new camp-bed he is making. . . . I consider him a fit subject for the hospital, and to be doctored accordingly. . . . Our Church Sewing Society for the army had its first regular meeting yesterday. Abby is treasurer, and Mother, having been put into the president’s chair, got out again, not liking the conspicuousness, and was immediately pounced upon for the purchasing committee.
Eliza Woolsey Howland writes:—Charley is doing up all his errands (very fatiguingly) and announces his intention of going back, leg or no leg. . . . We are waiting very anxiously now for every mail and the news from Grant and Burnside—and if Meade is also fighting, as last night’s Post thinks, it would seem that the great crisis has really come.
I go to cut out army shirts.
