Letter from Luther Bruen, Camp near Bealeton Station, VA to Augusta Bruen, 1863-12-15
Camp near Bealeton Station Dec. 15. 1863 My Dear Wife: I wrote you a long letter on Sunday and rec'd yours on the 8th on the same evening. No letter came last night, so I am writing one myself to her whether that will bring me another tonight. I wrote to Robert yesterday, so my letter will be ready for him when he arrives. I do not think he will come out see me. When in Washington he appears to be very busy, - has all sort of engagement with a good many kind of people, - and is always complaining of being away from home + fixing a time to leave. It will be the same on this occasion I presume. He will think he has no time to come to see me until he gets anxious to go home, for which he will suddenly start some day, writing to me how very sorry he is that this engagement were such that he couldn't possibly with me. I can't say how far his desire to see how soldiers live in camp would carry him, but merely like to see me wouldn't put him to much trouble. This is the fourth letter I have written you since I scribbled that pencil note. They don't seem to reach you as soon as they should. The first after the note was dated the 7th & the second, the 8th. I was to situated for several days after sending the note that I could not write. Our mail now leaves in the afternoon or morning so that my letter will probably reach you a day earlier than her mail. I saw Capt Lay yesterday and asked him about the direction to by wife. There are two or three *mentalities*- the Capt's name is R.G. and *Madame's* is C.K. Mr. Kimball's is E.H. (not H.G. as you had it) 55 Liberty St is right. Nin. L. is staying with *Meas.* Morton at present, about the last of the month she expect to visit Washington, to remain a couple of months. It is suspected that Mr. Kimball's barn was burned by a man who had *charge of his system oyster-pond + whom he discharged after detecting him in *dibouaf*. The man is now in jail, but it is doubtful whether a case can be made against him. Mr. K's loss was pretty sever one for him, I suspect. Besides the women-folk must be very much terrified at the prospect of having the house burned down over their heads any night. Mr. L. + her sister are both at Mrs. Morton's, but I suppose the old lady has too much pluck to be frightened away from home in that way. It would be a great pity to have their pleasant houses with all their fine books, pictures, articles of *winter* be destroyed by fire, wouldn't it? I send you a letter from the correspondent of the work chronicle, giving an account of our operations on the other side of the Rapidan. How correct it is, I cannot say, further than that much of the blame or the fault was in each for French who is said to have been ordered. The paragraph next to the last is wrong. Sedgwick was in command of a force on the right, but when our cannon opened there was complete silence along the rest of the line. Nor was there any firing until ours had ceased, nor for some hours after when the *depots* of the Reserve Artillery opened but they did not fire many shots. It is very hard to get a truthful account of military operations. The action in them have few opportunities for learning anything but what they do themselves, correspondent have an opportunity at seeing more, but they generally write on if they never way with + whom gives an intelligible account of what they undertake to narrate. We have settled down into winter quarters + shall have nothing *eating* until the commencement of the spring can begin. Much love from thee LBB #I think papa was mistaken about Uncle Robert he has certainly proved himself very kind to Papa's family since his death. *Nannie*#
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December 15, 1863
Bruen, Luther Barnett
Bealeton, VA
4 pages
United States -- History -- Civil War, 1861-1865
Bruen, Luther Barnett -- Correspondence
Catharine Mitchill '31 Collection of Family Letters, Wellesley College Library, Special Collections
MSS.6.260
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http://repository.wellesley.edu/mitchill/260
