S B W

Glencoe, Nov. 15^th 1863

 

I again commence a letter to you without any prospect whatever of sending it, but I can at least have it ready in case one should suddenly occur. I feel so restless & unhappy that it will be a relief to tell my troubles to you at least to write them on paper & I think of you at the same time. Do you know it has been three months since I have heard from you in any way whatever; the last letter I had was the one sent by Mrs. Welsh & dated the 1^st of August; sometimes I am almost distracted with fear for you; if it were not for my faith in God I could not bear it. Often in the midst of gay company I sit thinking of you until the room & everyone in it fades from my sight, & I see you amid the smoke of the battlefield wounded or perhaps killed or lying sick & deserted in some desolate place. A young gentleman friend of yours told me the other day that you were certainly engaged to be / married to a young lady of Florence & that you visited her constantly. I also heard the same thing in a letter from Nashville. I thought when I heard this, but only for an instant, that perhaps that was the cause of your long silence & what I felt in that one instant I can never describe to you. & then came back to me with the radiance of a sunbeam my trust in you, & I knew in my heart that it could not be true. Glencoe looks desolate now every thing is covered with snow, the hills look much larger & are more clearly defined in their white robes, & this whole scene is altogether wild & impresses me sadly. I often walk in the garden & stop at the spot where we parted, or at least where you told me Good Bye the night before you left. O! how the old [?] revives with the old scene. I can almost feel again the soft firm pressure of your hand & hear your voice, & remember well your words so full of tenderness & yet so free from that revolting sentimentality that others had / offered me & my heart cries out in its loneliness. O! Summer night come back to me.

 

Nov. 25^th I was interrupted in my letter & have not had an opportunity of resuming it for several days, & in the meantime, last evening, much to my joy I received a letter from you dated Oct 18^th at Courtland. You said there would be a note enclosed telling me how to answer it but it was not there & I am still without any means of sending this letter. I am as anxious to see you as you are or can possibly be to see me, but even if you succeed in obtaining a leave of absence I do not see how that is to be the means of bringing us together for it would be entirely too dangerous for you to attempt to come here or go to Paducah but I think the exigencies of the service must be great indeed if after serving faithfully for nearly three years you can not have a few weeks rest. I would do any thing sacrifice anything to see you & be with you once for it is all I care to live for, but I see no way in which it can be accomplished, unless you should be taken prisoner & be brought within the lines which I must confess I hope most de/ voutly will be the case, as strange & perhaps even wicked as you may think such a wish. I would be thankful to see you even in a prison; the plan of not exchanging prisoners is thought by the Union people here to be quite impracticable; the people of the North will not stand it, & some arrangement will soon have to be made, so that I feel even if you were taken you would not be kept long in confinement & I would have the intense satisfaction of knowing that for a while at least you were safe from yankee bullets; but dearest, it is all in the hands of God & if we trust in Him, He will bring it to pass for He has promised to hear those that pray to Him with faith. At some times I have a presentiment that I will see you soon & then I am so happy & the whole world seems bright & beautiful. I expect my by this time you have seen or heard from Susie Woods; she is in Florence waiting for an opportunity to go to Lizzie. I asked her to write to you as I was not allowed to do so myself. It was a great temptation to me to go with her, & strange to say Father & Mother were / both willing that I should but just then a new order was passed not allowing persons to go South & return here to live so of course under those circumstances I was afraid to go. We are going in town in a week to stay at the Planters House for two months. I can not bear the idea St. Louis is so gay now, club parties weddings, receptions, matinees concerts lectures &c. I cannot of course live amongst all this gayety & not participate to some extent in it, but society is as painful to me now, as it was formerly pleasant, & I have lived so very retired for the last year that I feel entirely out of place at a party & then I have not the spirit for such things I am never happy now. O! when when shall I see you again! I had a letter from your Sister Florence a few days ago; she writes such bright pleasant letters. I keep up quite an extensive prison correspondence now. Hugh & Jack Kirkman, Mr. Doc Vanleer & Mr. Rutledge are all on Johnson's Island & several others of my friends are at the Alton Prison. Hugh writes / in fine spirits. I sent him a nice box of all sorts of nice things a few days ago it contained various kinds of dainties cigars silk handkerchiefs & a great many interesting books, but unfortunately he never received it. The ladies here are very much interested in the prisoners & do all they are allowed for them. I sew a great deal but I cannot beg money as the rest do.

 

Dec 3^rd I again resume this endless letter after another interval of several days. I must not close my letter without telling you that Dr. Pollok is to be married on the 29^th of this month to Miss Sallie Perry, Mr. Henry Nesbit was married last week to Miss Selby of Ken. Dr. Alexander & Julia Barret are to be married this evening, & Mr. Munford & Miss Erskine very soon. Mrs. Gen. Bowen came up from the South & staid a few weeks Mr. Frank Noell came with & was allowed to remain at liberty about two weeks when to his great surprise he was sent to prison Mrs. Bowen has returned Mrs. Schaumberg has gone South to see her son. The Radicals (Republicans) have / have carried this state & their measures are becoming so severe that it is thought in six months from now no person with any Southern proclivities will be allowed to remain here. Did you ever receive a foolish little work box I sent you by Mr. Chiles? If so you must have thought it a strange thing for me to send you but it was sent through mistake I had made a very pretty little thing for you called a soldier's companion which the Ladies make a great deal for prisoners & I asked Mrs. Chiles to send to me for it when Mr C. started which she did but I was quite sick at the time & told the servant to get it but she took my own work box emptied it filled it with buttons of & thread & sent it off & when I recovered I was searching everywhere for my box & finally upon questioning Kate I found to my great amusement that she had sent it to you. I hope if it ever reached you that you did not think I had taken leave of my senses. Your friends very often enquire for you particularly Mr. Kennedy & Mr. Berry & Miss Cornelia I have a cousin from New York spending the win / ter with me. she is a very sweet companion but rather too fond of society for my present mood. I have been in miserable health this fall & have just now recovered from a "spell" of fever which they thought at first was typhoid fever but I hope now to be entirely well again. I ride occasionally on horseback but the weather does not admit of it very often; but I am still a great coward about riding. And now I must close this long letter which I do not suppose you will ever receive. Write to me by every opportunity, many will fail but some of the letters must reach me. I love you more deeply & devotedly the longer this painful separation lasts; "mine is an unchanging love, higher that the heights above deeper than the depths beneath free & faithful strong as death". God grant that we may meet soon. Good Bye

 

Mother always sends much love to you

                       

I am Lovingly Your own

                                                _______

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Nannie Bell is to be married on the 19^th of this month.

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