N.B. Send me one dozen of my Vignette photographs by express directed to me, No 249 I. Street care of Col J. P. Taylor. Send a new one of yourself also if you have it. M^cL

Send postage stamps

 

Head Quarters 2^nd Brig 1^st Div

Camp at Centerville Oct 31^st 1862

 

            No more letters from you dear wife since your first one. I have been looking every day for another but have so far been disappointed. Perhaps tonight I may be more fortunate. As yet I have no information of our future movements. Gen^l Stahel has gone to Fairfax and when he returns we expect to have some definite information. Since the commencement of the advance by M^cClellan every one here is expecting some movement from this quarter, but we are without any knowledge and all is mere speculation. My men have nothing but the small shelter tent which is totally insufficient for their protection in winter, and yet the department have refused to give them anything else, and looks as if they / intended us to march with light baggage. Under no circumstances could the men pass the winter in this climate with such tents. They are the size and shape of an India rubber blanket with eyelet holes on the sides and are intended to be carried by the men the same as their blankets. From the refusal to change their tents for proper ones for winter we infer that an advance is to be made by our corps. In this however we may be mistaken for we may be kept as an army for the defense of Washington in case of a defeat on the part of M^cClellan. It is idle however to speculate in regard to our movements for we can arrive at no certain conclusion, and all our expectations may be disappointed. I do not think it possible to make a winter campaign and therefore sooner or later we must go into / winter quarters, and my anxiety now is to have some place selected where I can have my darling wife. If you should join me I do not expect you will be pleased in any way excepting in being with me, for it is not very likely that there will be any one with whom you can be intimate. In this however I may be mistaken as many of the officers will doubtless have their wives with them if it is practicable to do so. How you will be able to arrange all matters at home I cannot tell, but of one thing I am sure, that you will do so, and come to me if I am where I can receive you.

 

I have only been absent from you eleven days and it seems to me that I am just as anxious to see you as when I started for home from this place. The prospect of winter quarters I am afraid cools my ardor for an advance wonderfully, as I hope with winter quarters to have my little wife. I wish I could / afford to rent a house in Washington and move you all there at once. I could at least visit you occasionally at that place. What a misfortune it is sometimes to be poor. Now if I only had a fortune there would be no difficulty in having you near me, but as it is I must count the cost of every movement. Tomorrow I hope to be able to write some news. Perhaps it may only be, "all quiet at the out posts at Centerville". Who can tell? Our confederate friends may conclude to drive us back, or Genl Halleck may determine to have us advance. Glorious uncertainty. Nothing definite or certain but this fact that our poor country is being ruined, and that there can be no change so long as there exists a rebel in the land. May they all soon be swept away or return to their allegiance. Love to Eliza and the children with kisses many & loving to darling wife. Does baby talk yet? N. C. M^cLean

SOURCES