Colonel Charles Russell Lowell to Major Henry Lee Higginson, November 19, 1863

Vienna, Va., Nov. 19, 1863.

. . . I wish that you and could make as pleasant arrangements for winter-quarters as E. and I have made. We have all the luxuries and some of the necessaries. Housekeeping is under difficulties, but is a success. It's a great thing, pendant l’hiver, to have a Brigade in a fancy Department, and to have your wife out to command it. In spite of Mosby, we have a good canter every day, have enough books, and only have not enough time to read them.¹ This is not a letter. Merely hearing how soon you were to be married, I wish to express my satisfaction and to give my formal consent. I would advise you not to be impatient about returning to your regiment. Haste is poor speed in such matters, but of course I know nothing of your condition (as we say of horses) or of your intentions. If you go to the Army of the Potomac on horseback, you must manage to pass through Vienna. Remember this, boy. How old are you? To see a fellow like you, whom I've seen grow up from an infant, go and be married, makes me feel very old.  . . . When you leave the service, you must permit to arrange your life so that we can occasionally see one another. I dare say she and E. could manage it. I have great confidence in them. Good-bye.

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¹ Chaplain Humphreys wrote home of the kindly and refining influence of Mrs. Lowell's presence in the camp, and of the hospitality that welcomed the officers in turn at the little home which the Colonel and she had established there. He adds: “With the foreigners in the hospital, I was greatly assisted by the wife of the commander, who visited the patients very frequently. She delighted the Frenchmen, Italians, and Germans, by conversing with them in their own languages, that so vividly recalled their early homes. She often assisted in writing letters for the disabled soldiers, and when I sought to give comfort to the dying, her presence soothed the pangs of parting, with a restful consciousness of woman's faithful watching and a mother's tenderness.”

SOURCE: Edward Waldo Emerson, Life and Letters of Charles Russell Lowell, p. 314-5, 445