01. Harry's Letters, 1863

Head Quarters 2nd Div.

9th Corps Newport News Va

March 5th 1863

Dear Nellie:

I know how distrustfull you are of my excuses and of my other earnest avowals generally so I shall by no means open a correspondence with you by making its commencement an elaborate apology which the fair object for whom it should be intended would laugh at incredulously. Not a bit of it. I couldn't write to you nor anybody else from Washington -- nor from any place this side of Portland -- nor did I -- and all because

a vast and varied concatenation of adventitious adverse circumstances conspired in an entirely unlooked for -- and -- as the newspaper puffs say -- "in a hitherto unprecedented manner." Nor did I have my picture taken -- as according to promise -- because I couldn't sit down in any place but a railway car long enough to have it done -- and they don't take good photographs of a fellow "riding on a rail." But I much regret my inability to have undergone the daguerreotyping process -- but shall take the earliest and most favorable opportunity of doing that same. But Nellie, you must send me your picture -- for unsatisfactory as your counterfeit presentment

would be to me as a substitute for its original, I am afraid it will be the nearest approach to your own sweet face and from which I shall be able to enjoy for many a long and weary day. Indeed Nellie I want it very very much -- And I know you don't want me to annoy you with coaxing -- and then you know how dearly I shall cherish it. I want it for a Talisman -- for the other went with me as a good angel of safety through three hot and bloody battles.

We are delightfully situatued in our camp. It is situated upon the bank of the James River and overlooks the scene of the

battle of the Monitor & Merrimac. Indeed this place has been the field of many of the most interesting operations of this war. Plainly to be seen from the door of my tent are two grim sentinels of the seas -- the iron Clad "Sangamon" and "Galena", and a half mile or more below them, rising from the surface of the broad stream are the dismantled remnants of the old Frigate Cumberland's masts. They stand there to mark the watery grave to which the iron sheathed monster of Richmond so ruthlessly and suddenly sent her. I wish you were here to enjoy a sight at these scenes; and if we remain at Fortress Monroe -- as we

may do -- during the coming spring and summer, -- I hope to be able to induce you to realize that wish.

But pleasant as this Camp is, I feel a sad longing -- a lonely, weary sense -- under which my thoughts are constantly recurring to other scenes and other faces than those around me. I find myself, morning noon and night making dream pictures of a little brown cottage where somebody holds the warmest and softest portion of my heart. I see a pair of kind -- and, as I hope, not unloving -- eyes