Camp Cameron, Near Washington, May 10th, 1861.
Dear Mother, —
I have been disabled from writing for several days by an inflamed eye. I had
used it too much in writing in the Capitol by imperfect light, and the smoke of
a guard fire on a wet night finished me. So, for a few days, I was invalided,
and took refuge in town with a friend. He is an old soldier, and a fellow of
infinite experience, and I have had a capital time with him. At camp things go
on in order, and all our friends look finely.
Mr. Fiske sent me a letter to Seward. I have seen him twice,
and am more than ever convinced of his capability to do his part in the crisis.
You have read his masterly letters to Dayton. That is the only ground to take,
as you know I have believed from the first. Seward and the others avow that
they did not anticipate this total defection of one side, nor the total
adhesion of the other, and so at first we were paralyzed. Now, everything will
advance as fast as it can.
Mr. Seward gave me a letter to Cameron. I hope to get a Captaincy
in the new army. But who can say? there are a dozen applications to one place.
I shall manage somehow to see service. Active service for the army now
collected here is hardly likely just yet, unless we are attacked, which we do
not expect. Perhaps there will be before long an attack on Harper's Ferry.
Great military movements southward will not take place before fall, so the
chiefs say. For we are regiments, and not an array as yet, and we must move in
an impregnable body, to reclaim the country.
SOURCE: Laura Winthrop Johnson, Editor, The Life and Poems of Theodore Winthrop, p. 287-8
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