Fine winter day. All goes well at camp. Shall call it Camp Hastings. Eve with Generals Crook [and] Duval and doctors at Mr. Thurston's. The old gentleman a fine staunch Unionist. Miss Tidball, a cousin of doctor's sang Secesh songs. Pretty girl.
SOURCE: Charles
Richard Williams, editor, Diary and Letters of Rutherford Birchard
Hayes, Volume 2, p. 553
DEAR UNCLE: – I am now in our winter camp. All things seem to be about as they should be. My leave of absence for twenty days has been granted, and I shall start home in two or three days. I shall probably not be able to stay with you more than one day. I can't yet tell, but I suppose about the 25th I shall get around to Fremont. I hope to reach Chillicothe on the 12th. Yours of the first I got last night. I will stay with Mother one or two days at Delaware.
P.S. — My adjutant, Captain Hastings, is getting well. He is at Winchester and can't yet be moved from his bed. He will be major of [the] Twenty-third and in two or three months can probably ride. I have named my camp after him.
S. BIRCHARD.
