Sunday, July 20, 2014

Brigadier-General John A. Rawlins to Mary Emeline Hurlburt Rawlins, January 16, 1864

Nashville, Jan. 16, 1864.

I arrived here last night1 and found all well and delighted to see me.  . . . I myself am still troubled with my cold. I mention this not to cause you uneasiness . . . but simply because I promised you I would write you the exact state of my health, whether good or bad, and this I shall always do. This morning was delightful, just cold enough to be bracing to those who sought the street for a stroll either for pleasure or business. Don't understand me to say there were any pleasure promenaders, for, dearest, if there ever was a city over which the shadow of gloom hung darkly it is this. It is literally the City of Woe. Nineteen out of twenty of the inhabitants are in mourning for friends who have been killed in battle.  . . . The very buildings seem to lift their darkened and dingy walls in consciousness of the gloom above them. . . .

I have just written a letter to General Ransom, one of my warmest and most intimate friends, and send you an extract from it. “While North, at Danbury, Connecticut, on the 23rd ultimo, I married Miss Mary E. Hurlbut, whom I met first at our headquarters in Vicksburg, where she had been during the siege, having gone South with friends previous to the outbreak of the rebellion.  . . . She was for the Union after my acquaintance with her and will instruct and educate my children in the spirit and sentiment of patriotism which I hope will always actuate them.” . . .

The following extract from a letter written by Mr. C. A. Dana, the Assistant Secretary of War, to General Wilson I send you, knowing how pleased you are at everything said pleasantly of me. Don't, however, indulge in Mr. Dana's forebodings as to my health. “Mrs. Rawlins I had no opportunity of seeing, but I hope she will add nothing but happiness to the life of her most excellent husband. His appearance made me somewhat anxious about him. I feared that his lungs might be more seriously affected than I had supposed. His loss would be a great misfortune, not only for his friends, but still more for the country. Public servants of his quality will always be few. There are plenty of men whose names will flourish largely in history without having rendered a tithe of his unostentatious and invaluable contributions to the great work of the nation.”
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1 From the leave of absence which he took to be married.

SOURCE: James H. Wilson, The Life of John A. Rawlins, p. 384-5

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