Saturday, January 10, 2015

Colonel Charles Russell Lowell to Lieutenant-Colonel Henry S. Russell, May 23, 1863

Cp. E. Of Capitol, May 23, 1863.

We have no intimation yet of our probable destination — I am getting daily more and more indifferent about it. The officers whom I see from the Army of the Potomac give such discouraging accounts of its discipline and morale, of the bickerings and jealousies among the general officers, and of the general wrongness of things, that I hesitate about taking steps to get ordered there.1

You may rely upon it, Harry, that Lee will not remain idle if we do; he will send a column into Maryland again when the crops are ready: I look for a repetition of what occurred last summer. Do not think I am demoralized, not a bit of it: but I am a little disappointed, and am contented not to look ahead very much, but to remain quietly here drilling. The companies here are doing well, — the horses and men learn faster than I expected, — I put them at battalion drill yesterday.
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1 This was during the lull following the defeat of Hooker at Chancellorsville, and while Lee was planning the invasion of the North which was checked at Gettysburg.

SOURCE: Edward Waldo Emerson, Life and Letters of Charles Russell Lowell, p. 243-4, 418

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