Our grief has sorrowed itself down to calmness; but how sad
the household! Dear Willy was the darling of all. His unselfish nature led him
to be considerate to a most remarkable degree of every one's comfort. Never have
I seen so devoted and thoughtful a son. His love and care for his father had a
womanly tenderness in it. I have need to miss him! He was ever gentle and kind
to me, and loving to my children. A more faultless character I think I have
never known. And then he was so consistent a Christian; that is the
crowning blessedness of all. When he was struck down on the battle field,
friends gathered around him with expressions of sympathy (we are told), when he
said, “Don't distress yourselves about me, I am not afraid to die.” To the
surgeon he said, “I am at peace with God and with all the world.” My heart
aches for his poor father; he will stagger under the blow. His poor sisters are
heart-wrung. Nothing could exceed his brotherly love to them. Alas! what sorrow
reigns over the land! there is a universal wail of woe. Dr. White's family is
stricken just as this one is. Hugh, their most cherished one, is killed, and
today Professor White went with a hearse to try to recover his body. Henry
Paine, the Dr.'s son, is killed; Col. Baylor killed; Major Patrick killed. It
is like the death of the first born in Egypt. Who thinks of or cares for
victory now!
SOURCE: Elizabeth Preston Allan, The Life and
Letters of Margaret Junkin Preston, p. 147-8
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