Richmond

July 27th, 1861

Dearest Louise,

I had hoped a long ere this to have paid my respects in person and anticipated the expected answer to your last dear letter, but disappointments and difficulties have beset my health, delaying my departure from home till Tuesday last.  My intention, as announced in my letter to you Sister, to accompany my Sister in law to the Red Sulphur Springs was frustrated by the failure of due notice as to the time of her departure.  She found another escort and I was left behind.  Then came a delay, caused by the detention of Mr. McWhorter in Gainesville, with his wife, as I did not wish to have my home entirely unprotected.  At last, unable to wait any longer, I started and had the good fortune to meet him at the Depot on his way home.  I saw the news shining in his eyes that I had another niece.  And then came booming along the news of the great Manassa Victory.  And then, I was on the car and hurrying along towards the great theatre of agony and ecstasy, of anguish and rejoicing.  At every stop, as we advanced did the unity and sympathy of the National heart manifest itself.  We had an immense train of cars and they were crowded to suffocation.  Soldiers in furlough, hastening back to their posts, anxious fathers, brothers & friends wending their way to the scene of action, most of them uncertain of the fate of the loved ones, excited unpatient citizens unable longer to content themselves so far from scenes of so much interest, all were crowded together and sharing one common impatience to be on the soil of “old Virginia”.  Dear Old Virginia!  What did I tell you Louise?  Did I not tell you they were no pigmy race.  They only need waking up to a rouse them to deeds of glory, as of _____.  Well proud as I am of our white Southern race, yet am I proudest of all of our Virginia blood, when it is stirred to deeds of noble daring.  Thank God no craven was found on that bloody field, who called himself a southern born.  Save only the Traitors whose guilty consciences frightened their coward legs into running.  Poor, miserable Old Scott.  But my heart!  What a digression.  Let us go back and take a fresh start.  The cars were crowded and such a mass of excited, one minded people you never saw.  I never did tell then.  Turn your ear which way you would and the sounds came mingling the names of “Beauregard Johnson, Davis, Z______ killed, wounded Yanks,”. Confederates, 3,000-20,000 our boys, pet lambs and the name of regiments Colonel & Captains in whom each speaker felt some especial interest were the sole topics of an excited discussion for three days & nights.  All along as we passed, the outdoor scene was equally, often more exciting.  Large Confederate banners floated at every prominent place and little tiny ones in the hands of tiny children waved from every cabin door.  Shout answered to shout as we approached and left each stopping place.  Even in East Tennessee the lurking place of treason, and base Submission, the Union Flag is no longer seen, but in its place, the star and broad bars float and seem to promise a lasting protection to all who put their trust in them.

It seems dear Louise that I am purposely diverting your attention away from myself, who ought at this moment to be talking, not writing to you.  Its true, I would for a time divert your attention, your gaze, from myself.  Such a hideous object you never beheld.  If “old Bear” was the most appropriate epithet you could find to define the impression made upon you by our first interview, what term could you employ to describe the hidiosity of the Bear, in his present distorted proportions.  Rhinoceros will convey my own impression of what I have become.  My most intimate friends do not know me.  I am encrusted, as is the armadillo, and this swollen distorted visage would but frighten the children on the street were I to exhibit my self.  Therefore, I am a close prisoner.  I arrived here yesterday and have not seen any of my relatives, nor do I wish to unless I can get rid of this hideous deformity.  My visit however is not to them, but to you and it grieves me not a little to be thus stopped in the almost realizing of a long anticipated happiness.  It is a “hope deferred” not long enough I trust to “make the heart sick”.  That by the way has been getting better & better, the nearer it approached to you and you will I doubt not make a perfect cure of it one of these day before long.

You didn’t care about knowing what is the matter with me, that I can’t come along at once to see you do you?  If you were like other women, and had any curiosity, I would have told you before.  Of course, from the levity which which I treat it, you may infer that it is nothing very serious, though decidedly annoying, and in this instance, a persecution or judgement sent upon me for staying away so long from you.  If I had started only two days earlier, I should have been with you ere this and spared this petty persecution.  But delay breeds dangers and troubles of various kinds.  Before leaving home, I was out in the field where my hands were chopping some poisonous shrubs, and as I am peculiarly susceptible to the virus of the plant, it seized upon the whole exposed surface and made a beauty of your beast.  That is the whole story.  It takes a week to reverse its course.  Another week to shell off.  But before then I must see you.  Write to me as you used to do, to the care of Logan Waller and believe me, though deformed, still your loving “Bear”