Tuesday, June 9, 2015

Colonel Charles Russell Lowell to Josephine Shaw Lowell, August 9, 1864

Halltown, Aug. 9, 1864.

I've been ever so busy lately; I've hardly had time to sleep or think, except Sunday, when I slept all day, having been up all the night before. I am to have the 3d Brigade, — 1st Division in the New Cavalry Corps, — nothing very stunning, I fear, but good enough for a beginner. General Merritt has the Division. Everything is chaos here, but under Sheridan is rapidly assuming shape. It was a lucky inspiration of Grant's or Lincoln's to make a Middle Military Division and put him in command of it; it redeems Lincoln's character and secures him my vote, if I have one.

It is exhilarating to see so many cavalry about and to see things going right again.1
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1 July 26. Colonel Lowell was now released from his service against guerrillas, by an order to report with his regiment to General Wright in the Shenandoah Valley. They did duty with the Sixth Corps until August 9th, when General Sheridan was given command of the new department, and gave Lowell the “Provisional Brigade.”

After the regiment took the field, of course Mrs. Lowell could no longer , stay with her husband, so returned to her parents in Staten Island, and never saw him in life again.

SOURCE: Edward Waldo Emerson, Life and Letters of Charles Russell Lowell, p. 323, 457

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