Centreville, July 23, 1863.
People used to tell me, when I was at Cambridge, that those
were to be the happiest years of my life. People were wrong. Dissatisfied as I
have always been with myself, I have yet found that, as I grew older, I enjoyed
more and more.
I picked a morning-glory (a white one) for you on the
battlefield of Bull Run, the other day, but crushed it up and threw it away, on
second thought, — the association was not pleasant; and yet it was pleasant to
see that morning-glories could bloom on, right in the midst of our worries and
disgraces. That reminds me that I haven't narrated where I went on Tuesday; we
started very early and went over the whole Bull Run battleground down to Bull
Run Mountains and Thoroughfare, thence to Warrenton, and back to near Manassas
Junction, by the Orange and Alexandria R. R., — a killing march of between 52
and 54 miles on a scorching day and nothing learnt, except this, that there was
nothing to learn. However, men and horses have stood it pretty well. At
Manassas Junction I met General Gregg and his division of Cavalry. Gregg told
me he had applied for my regiment some time ago; that he had a brigade of five
regiments which he meant to give me, but the War Department didn't answer his
application, — the Brigade was still waiting for me; — provoking, isn't it?1
However, I long ago gave up bothering
about such things; I see so many good officers kept back, because they are too
good to be spared, and so many poor ones put forward merely as a means of
getting rid of them, that I never worry. Don't think that a piece of vanity, I
don't mean it so. I don't call any cavalry officer good who can't see the truth
and tell the truth. With an infantry officer, this is not [so] essential, but
cavalry are the eyes and ears of the army and ought to see and hear and tell
truly; — and yet it is the universal opinion that P—'s own reputation, and P—'s
late promotions are bolstered up by systematic lying.
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1 General David McM. Gregg had known Lowell in
the Peninsula, having been a captain with him in the Sixth U. S. Cavalry.
SOURCE: Edward Waldo Emerson, Life and Letters of
Charles Russell Lowell, p. 278-9, 429
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