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Sometimes I feel very hopeful, and feel that the time will be short before I return once more to active service; then perhaps the very next day I feel discouraged, and fear that I shall never again face the foe. . . . . It is the first time I have been sick to amount to anything since I was in the army; but now the old wound in my leg bothers me considerably (the one I had in the head never gave me any trouble), but I do not expect it will be long before I have a chance to get back to the front again. I hate to be away from the regiment.He writes again, congratulating a brother upon not being drafted, since he thought their family in sending three sons to the war was doing its share, and says:—
Don't think I am tired of the war or a disbeliever in maintaining it. I am in for carrying it on until the South will get so badly whipped that they will not dream of rebellion again for a century. But one family should not be called upon to make all the sacrifices; and this is why I would not have you go.He writes from hospital at Chestnut Hill, Philadelphia:—--
I am sorry you think I have done my share in putting down the Rebellion. I do not. My experience up to this time has only served to make me anxious to conclude the war and to be in at the death. Do not imagine that I admire military service, or am at all fond of martial pomp. Far from it. But my entire sympathies are enlisted in putting down this Rebellion. It is the old conflict, —the Roundheads and the Cavaliers; and one or the other must succumb.At length, much to his joy, he was able to leave hospital, and he rejoined his regiment November 23, 1863. On account of the absence of the commissioned officers from sickness, or duty elsewhere, he took command of the company upon his return, and three days afterwards was sharing in the fatigues and perils of the reconnoissance across the Rapidan. For the first two weeks of December, 1863, he had a very serious question to reflect upon and decide,—that of re-enlisting. With the exception of a month's interval between his return from the three months campaign and his second enlistment, he had now been in constant service since the very opening of the war, had been twice wounded, had received a
