Letter from Luther Bruen, Culpeper, VA to Augusta Bruen, 1864-05-03
Camp Near Culpeper Va. May 3. 1864 My dear, dear wife: Your sweet letter of the 26th has reached me here this afternoon, and you may be well assumed that it was a great comfort to me. I wrote you the day before yesterday, but am not certain that the letter was sent away from the army. This I shall send by a private hand and you may get it before the other reaches you. The long-expected movement has commenced. We shall probably march about mid-night + cross the Rapid Ann at *Germanna Ford*. The one we crossed on our return from the Mine Run campaign. Our corps leads the advance, our division leads the corps, and our brigade leads the division. My regiment will be preceded by two small regular regiments. You see my position will be a most dangerous one, if the Rebs have a force at the Ford and attempt to resist our crossing, and it is likely to be a dangerous one all thro' the campaign as we shall always be in the advance. It may, therefore, happen, my darling, that this will prove to be my last letter to you. You have been a dear good wife to me and have made my last ten years the happiest of my life. I am very sorry you will not be left in *unclear* circumstances if I fall, but that cannot be helped now. Knowing that you will conscientiously perform the duties that my death will devolve on you, I am perfectly content to leave our little ones in your hands without making any suggestions as to the way they should be brought up. You will do what you think right and that will be best for them I have no doubt. I shall try to do my duty on the campaign, let what may happen, and come home alive or dead with an unsullied name, of which you and our children will never be ashamed. May God bless you my dear loving wife and give you strength to bear any affliction which may fall upon you. If the worst should happen to me, try for our dear children's sake to overcome your grief, so that it shall not prevent you from performing your duties to them. Now I must say good bye my dear one. To you and our little ones. May God shield and protect you thro all the storms of life. Give my love to Mother and Mary and Elizabeth + thank your father for his many kindnesses to me and my family. Now Good bye darling for the last time Thy loving husband LBB #I enclose a little flower which grows all over the field in which we are encamped. What it is I do not know.#
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May 3, 1864
Bruen, Luther Barnett
Culpeper, VA
3 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.6.314
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http://repository.wellesley.edu/mitchill/312
