Saturday, May 16, 2015

Major John Sedgwick to his Sister, January 16, 1861

Fort Wise, January 16, 1861.
My dear sister:

Last week I sent you a letter via Denver City, but it is very uncertain whether you ever receive it. The mails here are very insecure, and then the chance of sending a letter two hundred miles to be mailed is still more unsafe.

Colonel Sumner has gone on leave for several months, which leaves me the only field officer with the regiment, and this may detain me here, and even prevent my getting a leave of absence. But great and terrible events seem to have transpired since you wrote. I trust they are greatly exaggerated, and that a remedy will be found to forge the links of the Union stronger than ever. All other evils compared with disunion are light, cemented as the Union is with so much blood and treasure. I shall wait a few days to receive a mail; if it does not come, shall send to Pawnee for it. I received one hundred and fifty papers in the last mail — some of them two months old. I sent you the slippers; a squaw brought them in just as the train was starting, and the clerk directed them.

Yours affectionately,
J. S.

SOURCE: George William Curtis, Correspondence of John Sedgwick, Major-General, Volume 2, p. 31-2

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