refused to absent himself even for a
few days from the front. In November, to his unbounded delight, a
daughter had been born to him. "To a man of his extreme domesticity,
and love for children," says his wife, "this was a crowning
happiness; and yet, with his great modesty and shrinking from
publicity, he requested that he should not receive the announcement
by telegraph, and when it came to him by letter he kept the glad
tidings to himself--leaving his staff and those around him in the
camp to hear of it from others. This was to him "a joy with which a
stranger could not intermeddle," and from which even his own hand
could not lift the veil of sanctity. His letters were full of longing
to see his little Julia; for by this name, which had been his
mother's, he had desired her to be christened, saying, "My mother was
mindful of me when I was a helpless, fatherless child, and I wish to
commemorate her now.""

"How thankful I am," he wrote, "to our kind Heavenly Father for
having spared my precious wife and given us a little daughter! I
cannot tell how gratified I am, nor how much I wish I could be with
you and see my two darlings. But while this pleasure is denied me, I
am thankful it is accorded to you to have the little pet, and I hope
it may be a great deal of company and comfort to its mother. Now,
don't exert yourself to write to me, for to know that you were
exerting yourself to write would give me more pain than the letter
would pleasure, SO YOU MUST NOT DO IT. But you must love your ESPOSO
in the mean time...I expect you are just now made up with that baby.
Don't you wish your husband wouldn't claim any part of it, but let
you have the sole ownership? Don't you regard it as the most precious
little creature in the world? Do not spoil it, and don't let anybody
tease it. Don't permit it to have a bad temper. How I would love to
see the darling little thing! Give her many kisses from her father.

"At present I am fifty miles from Richmond, and eight miles from
Guiney's Station, on the railroad from Richmond to Fredericksburg.
Should I remain here, I do hope you and baby can come to see me
before spring, as you can come on the railway. Wherever I go, God
gives me kind friends. The people here show me great kindness. I
receive invitation after invitation to dine out and spend the night,
and a great many provisions are sent me, including cakes, tea,
loaf-sugar, etc., and the socks and gloves and handkerchiefs still