Friday, May 17, 1861.
My dear Eliza: Your nice long letter of yesterday from Albany came this morning at breakfast. I say your “nice” letter in the sense of its being long and circumstantial. That anything concerning Joe’s going off is nice, I shall never be brought to say. It seems as if you both had been snatched up and swept away from us by some sudden and awful fate. No time for thought about it and no use for regrets! I hardly think he himself realized all he was pledging himself to–the bothering duties, I mean, of an Adjutant’s office, a great deal of work and no glory; a sort of upper servant to an exacting Colonel; though some people tell us that the Adjutant’s post is a highly military one, requiring fine military education – a knowledge, at least, of theories and laws, etc. I am glad that Colonel Davies impresses you pleasantly.
Do find out from Joe’s Dr. Crandall what style of garments he thinks best for hospital wear, as we are constantly cutting them out, and may as well make them with reference to his wants. Should the nightshirts be of unbleached or canton flannel, and drawers ditto? Should the shirts be long or short? and are extra flannel shirts necessary for hospital wear? I am going to the Cooper Union today to try and get some simple pattern for calico gowns. They advertise to supply paper patterns of garments to ladies, and their published circular, a copy of which I have seen, is far more particular and satisfactory in its directions than the one we have had.
I went to Astoria day before yesterday and came back yesterday noon. Aunt E. and I spent all the time in Casina library. The women dusted the books and I checked them off on the catalogue to see if they were all right and to leave them in good order for G. G. Howland, who moves up next week. I saw the transport go up to Riders’ Island with George Betts’ Zouaves–the Hawkins’ Zouaves as they are called. We can see the barracks built for them from Casina. I thought if Robert were at home he would be flying about in his sailboat, visiting these points, and could make many a call on Joe if he were to be at Fort Schuyler. I found on coming home from Astoria that Georgy had fairly begun at the hospital – the City Hospital on Broadway–but as she has requested me not to “discuss her” with anybody I had better leave her to tell her own story. She and Mrs. Trotter go down daily at twelve o’clock, and yesterday, Mother tells me, they went before breakfast beside, at 6 a. m. Two such visits a day, when a singing lesson and a German lesson come in between, are rather too much, I think, but this insane war is making men and women insane,– Mr. ___________ of Alexandria, for instance. Mother had a letter from him this morning written in the true Southern style – so highfalutin – with abuse and melancholy, martial ardor and piety, beautifully commingled. Mother wrote the other day to find out something about them, and this letter was to say that her’s had been received and forwarded to his wife and daughters at Lexington, Va., where he had removed them “to be out of the reach of the licensed outrages of our Northern outcasts, who make up the Northern army!”
Today we are going to try and decide on our wedding presents for Jenny Woolsey. Just think of Susan Johnson, too! and now Sarah Winthrop tells us of her engagement to Mr. Weston, a friend of her brother Will’s. It reminds me of the days of Noe when there was marrying and giving in marriage and the flood came and drowned them all. Love to Joe. What is his title now? We cannot call him plain Mister!