Ripon, Sunday, 8 A. M. (Sept. 11).
A lovely morning after one of the most stormy nights I ever
remember. Torrents of rain and continuous thunder and lightning and wind for
six or eight hours, — the Doctor1 and I were quite washed out, — our
tent seemed to be a through-drain for all the surrounding country. Did you see
the moon last evening? — here, she was a perfect stage moon, — the whole scene
what scene-painters aim at, when they have to put her to sleep on a bank. We
had the band up and they were quite sentimental in their choice of music, and I
grew as homesick as possible.
I received a long note yesterday from the Governor's
Secretary, Colonel A. G. Brown, — it occupied me yesterday afternoon, and
stimulated me to writing to such a degree that I wrote to Mr. H. L. Higginson
and to Barlow and to Blagden and to Major-General Hitchcock and to Cousin John,
— the latter about Will, who is soon to be released, and about Billy and about
another little horse (two sizes smaller than Billy) which he wishes me to take
and ride. I accepted the offer conditionally, and with scruples. It is a colt
of “Countess's,” a “Bob Logic” colt, and Mr. F. says is good, though small. I
hope it won't stop so many bullets as Billy.
I stopped here to send for a paper, and have read McClellan’s
letter. It won’t do, though it’s much better than a Peace platform.
_______________
1 Dr. De Wolf, then acting as brigade surgeon,
occupied the same tent with the colonel. Some years after the war, he became
the head of the Board of Health of Chicago.
SOURCE: Edward Waldo Emerson, Life and Letters of
Charles Russell Lowell, p. 345-6, 463
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