"I cannot even now get a leave of absence, and I am beyond words anxious
to hear about dear Uncle Jim. Just a line from him makes me think he was
to be with General Meade and in that great battle we won. A telegram to
the Engineers' Camp, Vicksburg, will relieve me.
"It is unlikely, if we go South, that I shall see you for many a day. All
leaves are, I find, denied. War--intense war like this--seems to me to
change men in wonderful ways. It makes some men bad or reckless or
drunkards or hard and cruel; it makes others thoughtful, dutiful and
religious. This is more often the case among the men than you may think
it would be. Certainly it does age a fellow fast. I seem to have passed
many years since I sat with you at West Point and you made me feel how
young I was and how little I had seen of life. It was true, but now I
have seen life at its worst and its best. I have had too the education
of battle, the lessons read by thousands of deaths and all the many
temptations of camp life. I believe, and I can say it to you, I am the
better for it all, and think less and less of the man who was fool enough
to do what with more humility he will surely do once more, if it please
God that he come out of this terrible war alive.
"When you see me again, you will at least respect my years, for one lives
fast here, and the months seem years and the family Bible a vain record,
as I remember that the statement of births comes after the Apocrypha
which leaves room for doubt.
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