Letter from Luther Bruen, Nokesville, VA to Augusta Bruen, 1864-04-18
Nokesville April 18th 64 My Dear Wife: Your second letter of the 13th came to hand this evening. Boyer made that ugly book case, for which he charged me $16.00. I know nothing about the trundle-bed and think you must have bought it yourself, as I was not at home when it was bought, I think. I have forgotten all about it, at any rate. He never made, or sold me an office-desk; of that I am absolutely certain, as I have none but that big one at R.Y.G.'s and that I bought in Cint. Boyer was *vaccinated* for a preacher but either the theology or the religion didn't take, so he subsided into a very mean cabinet maker. Never having been able to make a living by selling his manufactures to persons whose eyes were open he is now trying to do it by selling them to those whose eyes are shut! So Sam Galloway had the audacity to say there was a resemblance between your humble servant and the great Copperhead. Well - as I have been mistaken for him by some of his bumpkin admirers perhaps it is so, but I don't feel much flattered. I used sometimes to think I saw a resemblance to my brother David in the upper part of his face, and I confess that nothing ever made one feel kindly disposed to him but that. However he has put himself entirely beyond the pale of kind feeling even if he were that brother himself. I have heard nothing from Robert yet; indeed I only guess that that he has come to Washington yet as you did not say in your letter that he has *started* or was about to. I have written him another letter since receiving your first letter of the 13th, so that he ought to be pretty well *ported* on my views. Our quiet life here still continues, but it will not last long, tho' I shall not be surprised if some time elapsed before any warlike demonstrations are made by us. The rebs appear to be concentrating pretty near their whole army in front of us. If they are we shall be obliged to get many more troops than we have here now before we can fight them, and they do not appear to be coming very fast. I am not very well pleased with the military operations now in progress in the west. It seems to me that our forces there would be more profitably employed in making demonstrations towards Richmond instead of burying themselves in the wilderness of Louisiana and Texas. Unless they are used to engage the attentions of the rebs in Mississippi and Georgia we shall have all their forces to fight here. The old policy of *Leetteation* still finds favor with our military authorities in spite of the many *reverses* which it has brought upon our arms, and it seems as if it never *will* be abandoned. We shall need two hundred thousand men in Virginia, but I doubt whether we shall have half that number in the Army of the Potomac when we advance. Burnside will probably have 35000 or 40000 more to waste some where between Washington and Richmond. #It would enliven my spirits very much to hear that our Western army had commenced aggressive operations + that *Burnside* had been recalled to operate on this side of the Mississippi Much love to you all Thine L.#
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April 18, 1864
Bruen, Luther Barnett
Nokesville, 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.6.306
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http://repository.wellesley.edu/mitchill/306
