FT. MONROE, VA.,
July 8, 1855.
MY DEAR COUSIN: Your
kind letter of the 25th Ult was misdirected to me at New York and did not
overtake me at this place until a few days since. I am truly obliged to you for
the frankness and liberality with which you have given me your views in
relation to my proposed marriage. I do not understand you as fully approving
the step under the circumstances, and fully appreciate—perhaps indeed even
concur with you in your doubts as to its wisdom. I need hardly assure you that
I had rather have had your approval of it than that of any relation I have. I
owe so much of my professional services and advancement to your kind exertions
that I have felt it to be a sort of duty I owed you to speak with you freely
and fully on the subject. I should have only felt too happy if the step could
have met with your unqualified approbation, yet my own judgment told me that it
would be unreasonable to expect it. I sincerely hope, however, and believe,
that as time rolls on I shall be able to show that I have not made after all so
great a mistake as would appear to be the case at first. In comparing my own
case with that of hundreds of other officers of the army, the advantages appear
to me to be all on my side. There are 86 majors in the Army. Of this number
about 8 are bachelors. The rest are married men; many with large families and
some even grand-fathers. In most of these cases, these officers married while
in the subordinate grades of the Army, with small pay and when they and their
families were consequently subjected to many inconveniences from which my rank
will now entirely exempt me. Yet many of these people have lived very happily,
have educated and established their children well as they could, and express
themselves content with their present and past life. Many of these officers too—indeed
the most distinguished in our service—acquired their professional reputations
as married men, and that too when they married as subalterns such for instance
as Taylor, Worth, Lee, Smith, Mansfield, Huger &c &c. Marriage does not
appear to have affected in the slightest degree their activity or efficiency.
This was a point upon which I reflected much before taking this step and upon
which I have but few apprehensions.
My rank in the army
has freed me from many of the onerous and confining details of company, and
subaltern duties. My movements are not now so much controlled by the movements
of a particular line of men. I am much less subjected to that constant change
of station so inimical to the comforts of married life in the army. I shall as
a general thing henceforth, be in command when I go to my post, and will thus
have the power and means of securing to myself many comforts &c. of which,
as a Capt[ain] or Subaltern, I would have been necessarily deprived. I cannot
believe that my professional prospects or standing will be injuriously effected
by this step. Indeed I think that they may be materially improved, for what I
most desire now is to have two or three years of quietness at some remote post
where I may devote myself without interruption to professional reading and
study, and I truly believe that I could do so much more successfully as a
married man than as a single one. My own doubts and anxieties, however, lie in
quite another direction. Life in the army is more precarious than in any other walk
or pursuit of life; and an officer ought not perhaps to calculate upon living
the usual term of years and then dying of old age. The obligation then to
provide for his family for the future in case of his death is more urgent and
imperative upon a married officer than upon other men; and as Miss Nelson is
poor, I feel the full weight of this obligation in my case. Had I only to guard
against disease I might perhaps safely calculate upon living long enough to do,
as hundreds of other officers have done with fewer advantages than I have―viz,
to lay up a respectable competency for my family in case of my death. This I
confess is a point upon which I feel the greatest anxiety. During my life
unless I should be ejected from the army, and this is improbable, I shall have
no fears as to my ability to secure to her all the comforts she can reasonably
desire; but it is a very painful reflection to me to think that I may be killed
off and leave her in straightened circumstances—with nothing but my name. For
this reason only, it has always, been my desire, if married at all, to marry a
lady with some means of her own. If I felt certain that I should live 10 or 15
years longer, I should feel no anxiety on this subject, for with the increased
pay and rank which I cannot help from acquiring in the meantime I feel
confident that I could secure her against such a misfortune. A great many of
our officers who have married with small pay and in the lower grades have
managed to put away money and to live comfortable—some have become independent
and even rich; and it seems to me that there must be something radically wrong
about me, if I cannot, with my rank and advantages, now do the same.
SOURCE: Charles
Henry Ambler, Editor, Annual Report of the American Historical
Association for the Year 1916, in Two Volumes, Vol. II, Correspondence of
Robert M. T. Hunter (1826-1876), p. 166-8
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