Monday, March 30, 2015

Lucy Webb Hayes to Lieutenant-Colonel Rutherford B. Hayes, November 4, 1861

All we lacked of happiness was your presence. Not much time passes that you are not thought of, talked of, and sometimes cried over, but that is always done decently and in order, so I think I pass for one of the most cheerful, happy women imaginable. I do not dare to let Birchie see me downcast for he has so much sympathy that it is very touching to see him, and I do not want to cloud his young life with sorrow. Today is his birthday. He is very happy. Uncle George brought him an air-pistol, and he started to school, all of which, makes him really happy. The book which I get for him from you will complete his joy.  . . . I felt finely this morning. Every thing right.  . . . But this afternoon, felt almost down. Ruddy's chill is one cause, Birchie's absence another and Fremont the last and greatest. I cannot give him up, yet it looks dark and forbidding. It will be the last moment that I give up his honor, patriotism, and power to successfully command an army.

SOURCE: Charles Richard Williams, editor, Diary and Letters of Rutherford Birchard Hayes, Volume 2, p. 139

No comments: