Headquarters Delaware Department,
Wilmington, Del., July 7th, 1863.
Dear, dear Cousin Lou:
I said I would write you so soon as the full purport of the
good news was ascertained. And now that it has all broken upon us, although my
heels are where my head ought to be, I will try and fulfil my engagement as
coherently as possible. We have had the dark hour. The dawn has broken, and the
collapsed confederacy has no place where it can hide its head. Bells are
ringing wildly all over the city. Citizens grin at one another with fairly
idiotic delight. One is on the top of his house frantically swinging a dinner
bell, contributing thus his share of patriotic clamor to the general ding-dong.
Bully for him! How I envy the heroes of Meade's Army. It would be worth while
to die, in order that one's friends might say, “He died at Gettysburg.” But to
live to hear all the good news, and now to learn that Vicksburg has
surrendered, is a little too much happiness for poor mortal men. I can laugh, I
can cry with joy. All hysterical nonsense is pardonable now. Manassas, twice
repeated, Fredericksburg and Chickahominy! Bless them as the cruel training
that has made us learn our duties to our country. Slavery has fallen, and I
believe Heaven as well as earth rejoices. Providence has tenderly removed that
grand old hero, Jackson, before the blow came, that the one good, earnest,
misguided man might be spared the sight of the downfall of a cause fanaticism
led him to believe was right. Slink away ye copperheads to your native slime,
and there await until in Hell is ready the place your master has prepared for
you! There, Oh Fernando, go reign in torment to all eternity! These
enthusiastic citizens of Wilmington, not content with bell-ringing, have taken
to firing cannon, and the boys, to help matters, are discharging pistols into
empty barrels. The people in a little semi-slaveholding State, when not
downright traitors, are noisily, obstreperously loyal, to a degree that New
England can hardly conceive of. My letter must be short and jubilant, I cannot
do anything long to-day.
Just dance through the house for me, and kiss every one you
meet. So I feel now. Good-bye.
Affec'y.,
Will.
SOURCE: William Chittenden Lusk, Editor, War Letters
of William Thompson Lusk, p. 284-5
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