camp Near Seneca, December 2, 1861,
Monday Night.
There is no reason why I should write, except that Colonel
Andrews is going, and can take the letter. It is a harsh, cloudy, wind-driven
night; and we have detained the canal-boat till morning. We are waiting our
orders to march to Frederick. It looks like snow, and altogether there is a
cheerful prospect of a march before us! I expect to awake in a snow-storm.
I am awaiting, with some interest, the President's Message.
I shall like to see how he will pronounce a policy. One thing seems to me to be
clear. He must leave all political questions to a military solution and
settlement. Congress must do the same.
There is a method in events which must result, I think, in a
wise and practical solution of the negro question.
You recollect the cloister life of the Emperor Charles the
Fifth, — the abrupt transition of the proud king from a vast and absolute sway
to the solitude and asceticism and self-mortification of the cloister. I want
to read the cloister life of King Cotton, — his exile, poverty, and penance.
There will be a story of most instructive contrast. It is a story soon to be written.
I wonder, too, how Congress will bear our “inactivity” this winter. Clear it is
that we must be inactive. The mere movement of a division, with its artillery
and supply-train and baggage, is a distinct teaching that active field
operations are impossible before spring, on this line. So you may continue to
think of me as perfectly safe, and as hoping for liveliness with the buds of
spring. We shall have tried almost every phase of army experience before we get
home, I fancy I shall be an early riser to-morrow morning, and so must bid you
good night.
SOURCE: Elizabeth Amelia Dwight, Editor, Life and
Letters of Wilder Dwight: Lieut.-Col. Second Mass. Inf. Vols., p. 163-4
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