Major Wilder Dwight: October 14, 1861

pleasant Hill, October 14, 1861.

I was looking, last evening, at the bright gold of the western sky, and the frosty silver of the evening star, and was marking the cold glitter of the moonlight, when Mr. Spiegel appeared with my buffalo-robe in great glee. It was an opportune visitor, and I must not let our quartermaster go to Washington without a line of acknowledgment from me. Tell father that size is anything but an objection. I cannot hope to grow to it, but I will bring it to my model, and compose myself as comfortably as a warrior in his martial cloak. It will be glorious o' nights when we bivouac by camp-fires, as I hope we must soon.

We have had a glorious October day. Drill in the morning, drill in the afternoon. Questions of suttler's prices, of commissary's authority to settle rations, of quartermaster's allowance of stationery, &c., &c., &c., — the family jars of our little family. I wish I could write you a letter about' something in particular? but just now there is “nothing special.” I think the order to cook rations and hold ourselves in readiness to march came direct from McClellan, and was a precaution against an expected attack or resistance by the enemy opposite Washington. If so, that danger has blown over, and we may lie still for another week. They have, however, in this division, an organized secrecy, which covers everything with a drop-curtain. I received yesterday a letter from Judge Abbott, congratulatory on my expected promotion. I hope your ambition did not wilt when you heard that things stood still. It is much better for the regiment that they should, and far better for me, and I experienced a rebound from my quite decided depression when I found that the danger of losing our colonels was over.

SOURCE: Elizabeth Amelia Dwight, Editor, Life and Letters of Wilder Dwight: Lieut.-Col. Second Mass. Inf. Vols., p. 116-7