From Abby
New York, May 19, 1862.
My Dear Children: I am writing in a bookstore down town. . . . We had a famous letter on Saturday from you, Georgy, and another, half Eliza’s half Charley’s. I did not discover at first at what word one broke off and the other began. Your adventures are like those of the fox and the goose and the bag of corn. I hope you will all come together after awhile, perhaps have done so already, as both these letters were directed in Charley’s handwriting. Charley himself ordered your Tribune transferred to our house, and it is coming regularly. I have all the numbers from May 1, and I understood Mother that she had in one of the trunks all the numbers up to that date. . . . Baskets of flowers, vegetables, mushrooms, butter, etc., came down on Saturday from Fishkill. . . .
I have bought all the shirts I could find at the employment societies. … Do you need grey or red flannel shirts. You may as well say out and out what your observation decides is needed, and don’t be mealy-mouthed as to asking, or in mentioning quantities. We can as well send hundreds as dozens, except that it takes a little more time to collect them. Money is no barrier, of course. If all we can do is to send things for you to make useful, do let us send enough! and do you use up fast enough. . . . Thomas Denny & Co., Mr. Aspinwall, Robert, and others have just made their money over to Jane, ” for you and your sisters to spend in any way for the soldiers,” and they all refuse to say what we shall buy or precisely how much shall be used here or sent there.
You remember I said Carry had gone down in search of Captain Parker, of the 16th. She picked out the handsomest man in the barracks, with pale complexion and long blonde beard, but he was in bed, undressed and fast asleep. The lists had not been made out, and no one knew if that were he. She had no flowers—nothing but a soft old cambric handkerchief which she cologned and laid on his pillow, but she had to come away without finding out who he was. . . . You must send any wounded officer to our house, using your discretion of course about it—those officers who have been used to refinement, and who need care. We should be very glad to entertain them and take care of them as they pass through the city, above all any officer of Joe’s regiment. Captain Curtis must certainly come to us when he is well enough to move. . . .
Jane has gone to the City Hospital this morning with her usual illustrated papers and pots of jelly. The mortality in the North house, where the fever patients are, is very saddening. They hardly seem sick at all, but they die. She takes down things one day to a man, and next day he is dead. Five or six is the daily number. . . . Good-bye, dear girls and boy.