“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 come!

“I am so thankful to our ever-kind Heavenly Father for having so improved my eyes as to enable me to write at night.  He continually showers blessings upon me; and that you should have been spared, and our darling little daughter given us, fills my heart with overflowing gratitude.  If I know my unworthy self, my desire is to live entirely and unreservedly to God’s glory.  Pray, my darling, that I may so live.”

Again to his sister-in-law:  “I trust God will answer the prayers offered for peace.  Not much comfort is to be expected until this cruel war terminates.  I haven’t seen my wife since last March, and never having seen my child, you can imagine with what interest I look to North Carolina.”

But the tender promptings of his deep natural affection were stilled by his profound faith that “duty is ours, consequences are God’s.”  The Confederate army, at this time as at all others, suffered terribly from desertion; and one of his own brigades reported 1200 officers and men absent without leave.

“Last evening,” he wrote to his wife on Christmas Day, “I received a letter from Dr. Dabney, saying, “one of the highest gratifications both Mrs. Dabney and I could enjoy would be another visit from Mrs. Jackson,” and he invites me to meet you there.  He and Mrs. Dabney are very kind, but it appears to me that it is better for me to remain with my command so long as the war continues...If all our troops, officers and men, were at their posts, we might, through God’s blessing, expect a more speedy termination of the war.  The temporal affairs of some are so deranged as to make a strong plea for their returning home for a short time; but our God has greatly blessed me and mine during my absence, and whilst it would be a great comfort to see you and our darling little daughter, and others in whom I take a special interest, yet duty appears to require me to remain with my command.  It is important that those at headquarters set an example by remaining at the post of duty.”

So business at headquarters went on in its accustomed course.  There were inspections to be made, the deficiencies of equipment to be made good, correspondence to be conducted—­and the control of 30,000 men demanded much office-work—­the enemy to be watched, information to be sifted, topographical data to be collected, and the reports of the battles to be written.  Every morning, as was his invariable