CAMP AT SUMMIT POINT, VIRGINIA, September 9, 1864.
DEAREST: — I received today your good letter of the 30th. I think I have got the most, perhaps, all of your back letters.
Speaking of politics: It is quite common for youngsters, adopting their parents' notions, to get very bitter talk into their innocent little mouths. I was quite willing Webb should hurrah for Vallandigham last summer with the addition, “and a rope to hang him.” But I feel quite different about McClellan. He is on a mean platform and is in bad company, but I do not doubt his personal loyalty and he has been a soldier, and what is more a soldier's friend. No man ever treated the private soldier better. No commander was ever more loved by his men. I therefore want my boys taught to think and talk well of General McClellan. I think he will make the best President of any Democrat. If on a sound platform, I could support him. Do not be alarmed. I do not think he will be elected. The improved condition of our military affairs injures his chances very materially. He will not get so large [an] army vote as his friends seem to expect. With reasonably good luck in the war, Lincoln will go in.
Have you any picture of Captain Gillis and Brigdon? Captain Austin had his arm amputated at the shoulder and died the night after. There was no saving him. Lieutenant Hubbard, supposed killed at Winchester, escaped from the Rebels and is now with us, well and strong. About half of the Fifth Virginia Volunteers leave us today. Colonel Enochs, Captain Poor, and others remain.
I do not know where the enemy is today. They were still in our front the day before yesterday.
As ever your
R.
MRS. HAYES. SOURCE: Charles Richard Williams, editor, Diary and Letters of Rutherford Birchard Hayes, Volume 2, p. 504-5
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