Colonel Rutherford B. Hayes to Lucy Webb Hayes, October 10, 1864

HEADQUARTERS SECOND INFANTRY DIVISION A. W. VA.,

CAMP NEAR FISHER's Hill, SOUTH OF STRASBURG, VIRGINIA,

October 10, 1864.

DEAREST:— I am very anxious to hear from you. I hope you are doing well.

We have slowly returned from our splendid campaign to this point. The Rebel cavalry impudently undertook to harass us as we approached here. General Sheridan halted his army and sent his cavalry back supported by two of my infantry regiments (Ninth and Fourteenth Virginia) and gave them a complete flogging, capturing their cannon (nine), train, and many prisoners. They were chased from the field at a run for twenty miles.

I don't know when we shall return to Winchester, but probably soon. This valley will feed and forage no more Rebel armies. It is completely and awfully devastated — "a belt of desolation," as Sherman calls it for one hundred and twenty-five miles or more from our lines. — My love to all.

Ever affectionately,

R.

P. S. — Just heard through Captain Douglass (10 A. M.) that I am the father of another boy. God bless the boy - all the boys - and above all the mother.-H.

MRS. HAYES.

SOURCE: Charles Richard Williams, editor, Diary and Letters of Rutherford Birchard Hayes, Volume 2, p. 523-4