Wednesday, February 11, 2015

Lieutenant-Colonel John T. L. Preston to Margaret Junkin Preston, December 1, 1861

Winchester, Dec. 1st, 1861.
Sunday Night.

Dear Wife, — I have been to church twice to-day, the General and I, so you see business has been slack; though we started a section of artillery this morning, and made arrangements for receiving a regiment of militia, sent out to arrest a suspected man, released a number of prisoners from the guard-house, and received and attended to several couriers with dispatches. But papers that could stand until another day, we laid over, and so went to church, as I have said, once in the morning, and once at night. We heard a most excellent Gospel sermon, preached with sincerity and fervor, from Mr. Graham of the Old School; and have just returned from hearing an elaborate effort by Dr. S. of the New School. The N. S. have preserved their distinctive revival type, characterizing their preaching, and especially their prayers, in a way not agreeable to me. Dr. S. is counted very able, and he is in fact striking, but I did not relish his discourse, which was one of his noted ones, preached by request; subject, the last Judgment. I was not profited. The house was crowded to suffocation, and the air was impure, so I fell into a drowsy intellectual inanition that was painful. We went at half past six, and got back at half past nine, so you see I suffered a good deal. By the way, since I have been here, I have been troubled with drowsiness that I never felt at Craney Island. Surely it was a blessed isle! I feel as if I had been laid up in lavender there all summer. Perfume is scarce in this service, I assure you. A crane would hold up his neck high, and step along in dainty disgust at our doings here. And yet we are in clover at Headquarters.

If the services of church did not profit me much, the singing charmed me. Nothing makes me realize home more than sweet female voices at church. Tell Betty I thought often of her.  . . . Winter quarters will hardly come during my stay. We will not give up the expectation, at least, of active service, as soon as that.

SOURCE: Elizabeth Preston Allan, The Life and Letters of Margaret Junkin Preston, p. 121-2

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