Camp Deas, near Youngs Mills,
Sunday, 16th Feby.,
1862.
My dear Wife:
I
have not written you for a day or two past, having no means of getting a letter
to the Post Office, and nothing to write about. Your last advised me that Kirk
would be married soon and be with you on 22nd Feby. That would add
to the pleasure of a visit for me, and I have set my heart too much upon it, I
fear, and may be disappointed, as at present no leaves of absence or furloughs
are being granted. I will certainly be up the latter part of the week, if I
can.
I
have opened quite a pleasant and profitable correspondence with Bro.
Wheelwright relative to getting up a Battalion so as to be thrown together next
year, looking to the probability of my being in service. I am very much
troubled as to what I should do. My company wait on me and are ready to
re-enlist if I will let them. I await a reply to a letter to David to know what
he and the other boys propose to do. It may be with an overwhelming foe it will
be the duty of all of us to be in the field. If not, we ought to be at home to
look after the families and interests of the others. As I have become accustomed
to the roughness of camp life and its duties, I would be more useful to my
country and less liable to disease. Time is flying and the army should be
reorganized at once, and increased to the full amount of arms we have.
I
think by the 1st of May by the blessings of Heaven we will have
given such a check to our enemy as will bring a peace by the fall, or it may be
that having His frown still upon us our enemy may press us sorely and cripple
our strength greatly. I feel and believe that all depends upon the will of God,
and the energy of our people. I feel thankful for the reverses of Roanoke
Island, whenever my mind reverts to it. I am sure Christians have been humble
and have prayed with more earnestness during the past week than at any time
since the war began and I believe the fruit of this disaster will be a more
general recognition of God by our people.
I sometimes fear
that our people at home are lulled by their ease and luxury, with their
feasting and riches, into the deceitful security of Belshazzer and will not
awake till too late to the recognition of their danger, then panic will seize
them. God avert it from them and be their strength.
Had
I not have taken part in this revolution, aye, to the end if need be, I never
could have enjoyed the liberty it will bring. I should have felt like one who
had stolen another’s rights, the blood of these slain to secure it would have
been on my skirts, my manhood would have departed from me. I pray God to let me
live to see it firmly established for my country and children and to direct me
as to my duty to it and them, to keep all ambition out of my heart, and to
plant and cultivate only there Godliness and true patriotism, to so order my
steps as to reflect to his glory, to make me quick to perceive my duty and them
give me grace to perform it.
I stopped just here to attend our company
prayer meeting, which we keep up and are very well attended and very
interesting. It is very gratifying to me to see so many young men who amid all
the temptations and trails of camp life preserve their profession unspotted
from the world, and whose lives would put to shame many of the aged in their
church. They are built on a rock, and if their lives are spared to return to
the peaceful vocations of life, they will be useful members and active
disciples of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ. It is comparatively easy to
preserve the outward form of Godliness in the Church, where there is no
temptation to try, and with the soothing flatteries of Satan to blunt the
conscience and believe we are loving to God, but the refining fire of
affliction, temptation, trails, etc., separates the dross, and too often, alas,
proves to us that the whole is counterfeit. The man who through the affliction
of war comes forth a brighter Christian than he went in, who ever bears aloft
the standard of his Saviour, who has it in his heart to praise his God while
all without is as dark as midnight, has an anchor both sure and steadfast, and
can then fully appreciate the blessings of peace, and the prospect of the final
victory over death. I believe these alone are privileged to realize the depth
of these similes of the Word of God which compare the Christian cause to a
continual warfare, who have been in the midst of war. History and the accounts
of battle fail to impress us with the extent of its meaning.
It
may be that as I suggested I may not be able to get up by the 22nd.
If so and Kirk and Lucy should be with you, bear them my congratulations, and
may they in their new life raise in their hearts an altar to God, may they
realize that their present happiness may be marred by the trails and troubles
by which we are surrounded unless their trust is in God, may the influence of a
Christian wife be Lucy’s to bring her husband to God, and may Kirk’s love of his
wife be second and subordinate alone to his love of God, then true happiness is
theirs, then as whispering brooks in a united inseparable entrance flow gently,
placidly on to the mighty ocean, may their united hearts in happiness flow on
to the eternal bliss of Heaven. I pray God’s blessing upon them.
Kiss
the dear children and keep them in remembrance of father above all things. As
your first duty to the world, train them in the way they should go. Always
remember me to Sister Hays, who I congratulate has not to bemoan Thomas as
killed, wounded, or a prisoner. Now to me plainly does God’s providence appear
in that disaster, rebuking a wily politician and open blasphemer. Oh, Lord,
forbid that a holy, just cause should suffer at the hands of the ambitious
sinful, but direct in the appointment of all our superior officers and cause
Thyself to be owned and recognized by all.
Love
to all friends.
Yours
ever affectionately,
Jno.
S. Walker
