Meadow Bluff, Sunday, May 29, 1864.
Dearest: —
Still here getting ready — probably delayed some by the change in Department
commanders, but chiefly by rains and delays in obtaining supplies. All the
brigade now here, camped in sight of where I now sit. We hardly know where we
are to come out, but there is a general feeling that unless Grant succeeds
soon, we shall turn up in his army.
You notice the compliment to Major Avery, “bravest of the
brave.” A good many officers of [the] Twenty-third are talking of going out at
the end of the original term, ten days hence. Major McIlrath bid us good-bye
this morning. Major Carey is likely to take his place with the veterans of the
Twelfth. . . .
My staff now is Lieutenant Hastings, adjutant-general,
[Lieutenant William] McKinley, quartermaster, Lieutenant Delay, Thirty-sixth,
commissary, and Lieutenant Wood, Thirty-sixth, aide — all nice gentlemen. I
enclose Colonel Tomlinson's photograph which he handed me today.
Well, this is a happy time with us. — You must not feel too
anxious about me. I shall be among friends.
A flag of truce goes in the morning after our wounded left
at Cloyd's Mountain. There were four doctors and plenty of nurses left with
them. . . . Love to all the boys.
Affectionately ever,
Mrs. Hayes.
SOURCE: Charles Richard Williams, editor, Diary and
Letters of Rutherford Birchard Hayes, Volume 2, p. 468-9
