Major Wilder Dwight: January 7, 1862

cantonment Hicks, near Frederick, January 7, 1862.

It is this Tuesday evening my stove is humming in my new house. Talk of luxury! — what is comparable to a log-house, with windows and doors, with shelves and tables, and a large, grand porch for an entrance, and in the Colonel's half of the house an open, old-fashioned, generous, glowing fireplace! You should see the architectural proportions of our new home. You would hardly believe it a week's work of our wood-choppers and masons and carpenters. Yet so it is. I shall hope to send you home a photograph of it. We were within a narrow chance of leaving it the other day, but now we have subsided again into tranquil housekeeping and camp life. I have Colonel Andrews living with me, and, indeed, took the house rather with reference to him than myself. I wanted a roof to put him under on his first taste of exposure. My man John, who is quite a character, takes great delight in the house. He thinks my half better than the Colonel's, though his is somewhat larger. “It is more comformblor nor the Colonel's, sir, and not so desolate like,” is his description of my cosiness. The Third Brigade went off on that alarm toward Hancock; and, as I surmised, the errand proved fruitless. We are, however, gathering hope of progress in the army. This condition of faith in things not seen, and hope without substance, is not inspiriting. The undertone of rumor in Washington was very strong in the direction of activity. I am coming to regard an early advance of our army as a political and moral necessity, whether it is physically possible or not. The achievement of the impossible is the duty and privilege of greatness; and now is certainly McClellan's opportunity.

Mrs. Ticknor did me the honor to send me a pair of stockings. I wrote yesterday to acknowledge their receipt. The weather, which has been bitter cold, is now moderating, and the tents do not shiver as they did.

SOURCE: Elizabeth Amelia Dwight, Editor, Life and Letters of Wilder Dwight: Lieut.-Col. Second Mass. Inf. Vols., p. 185-6