Oct. 1, 1861
Very little to tell you about except a few calls, including one from Mrs. General Franklin to ask us to take tea with her to-night. Lieutenant Lusk of the 79th, whom we used to know as “Willy” Lusk, also came. He seems to have grown up into a very fine young fellow, handsome and gentlemanly, and with the same sweet expression he had as a child. He was studying medicine in Europe when the war broke out, but came home at once and enlisted as Lieutenant in the 79th, where he is now Acting Captain–so many of the regiment were either killed or taken prisoners at Bull Run. Dr. E. also came again and Captain Gibson and Col. Montgomery of Philadelphia, so we had quite a levee.
Oct. 2. G. and I are just going up to Columbian College to cover and arrange a nice box of books Hatty Gilman has sent on at our suggestion to form the nucleus of a hospital library –an excellent selection of books, histories, biographies, etc.; half worn, but the covering and labeling we mean to put them through will make them highly respectable and attractive.
We took tea last night with Mrs. Franklin and met five or six other people, among them Major and Mrs. Webb–he on General Barry’s staff. Dr. Bacon has brought G. some splendid bunches of roses this week, the finest I ever saw. He expects to be ordered off with his new regiment, the 7th Connecticut, within a few days, probably to join the Coast Expedition, but this is a secret.
We have been with Captain Gibson all through the Corcoran Art Building, now used as a government warehouse and filled with clothing and camp equipage of every kind, one item being twenty thousand tents. From the roof, to which we mounted, we had a fine view over the city and environs, the river, the opposite heights and an army balloon.