Dwight Henry Cory Letters and Diary

I think perhaps we have both received enough flatter, as you term it, so that it will not be necessary for me to commence this letter by any apologies for addressing your Highness. I am sure that I am satisfied to quit off if you are. I am sorry if in the following of my footsteps and those of my fairer sisters you have been led to mistake your own interest, and substitute in the place of substantial value the pleasures of the moment. That this has been the fact to any considerable extent I have not yet decided to note down in my memorandum. Those of us who are remaining at home during these long years while you and your companions are having each valuable experiences will be altogether overshadowed when you return. we shall have no long stories to tell, no hairbreadth escapes to relate, no wonderful exploits and deeds of valor to recount. Do you recollect how Othello won the heart of the fair Desdamona, with that of her father? So I suspect it will be with our own blue-coated boys. Then you do begin to feel some anxiety - for the desperate case of myself and others of my advanced age. I am glad that you are interested in our behalf, and yet as there are so many of us (our name is Legion) that I think you would better not spend too much of your precious time thinking of us, lest you unwarily be lured into your old habit of following our footsteps. We have made up our minds, and that with resignation, (from necessity of course) to be "old maids." We mean to be a better set of "old maids" than those of past generations. Indeed we mean to be such a cheerful good-natured company that you will never think of applying that despised epithet to us. You will never think of our being old. We intend to spend our time in trying to elevate our race and trying to make all mankind happier. Thus you see we shall occupy enviable positions rather than pitiable ones.

Don't you wonder where I am? I am in Mrs. Wilson's kitchen. I am boarding with her now. I am teaching a Select School - all my own in our district school-house. I commenced two weeks ago - have thirty-two scholars, and the pleasantest school I ever taught. I have three Soldier Boys. Most of my school is made up of nice young ladies from fifteen to twenty years of age. I told Mary (your sister) today that I was going to write to you this evening. She said to give you her respects. Louise is one of my scholars - isn't that strange!

We have been having very deep mud, but for the last few days the wind and sun have been doing a good work for us, and the woods have become nearly settled. I don't know that I ever spent a day that I truly realized that it was as emphatically pleasant as today had been. The sun shone out so brightly that everything and everybody seemed glad. They did not all seem to know what was the reason of their joy but I could see in their very countenances that the return of spring had brought happiness to the lovers of nature. I think we will have some cold weather yet - but it does not seem much like it now. Sylvia has gone to Oberlin, I sat by Lois in Church yesterday and shook hands with your father. Charlie has grown to be a man while you older have been gone to the war. John was at home about the time that you was writing to me.

Then you do kind of like me. You are to be commended for your honesty in thus confessing it. I have no reason to think but that your affection is returned. Wouldn't you hate to have people know what privacy you and I indulge in? I wouldn't have anyone see our letters for anything, would you? I haven't seen our sister Emily for a good long while. She has been in Farmington and No baby has been very sick. I believe she is better now. The last day of my school in the north district the scholars presented me a very pretty Photo Album so you may not be at all backward about sending me your Photo. I should like very much to have it to place alongside my other "warltives." I have just received some Photos from Oberlin taken from a negative that I left there last Summer. I will send you one, as it may serve to call up old memories that may not be altogether unpleasant some rainy day when you have nothing to do but think of home and home friends.

I shall be glad to hear from you again.

Your friend
Melissa

I fear you will hardly get the answer to your last letter as soon as you may expect and perhaps you will go to the Post office in vain on account of my tardiness but I wouldn't care much if I could go with you. Is that ugly? I received a letter from Melissa this morning and one from Nelson and am consequently in every good humor. Nell's letter was mailed at Washington while on his way to no one knows where. John was left behind in the Hospital. We heard that the 23rd army Corps was to join this army and so I was looking for a visit from Nell but they are doubtless on their way to join Sherman and that will not suit me at all for I should like very much to be near enough to them to admit of my riding over to his habitation on a visit once in a while. You ought to tell me all about that air castle which you were building that morning when you wrote to me, but may be it would not be to my credit, but you need not stop on that account but tell me all about it and I'll guarantee that your heart shall not loose its reported softness, tenderness. I should have said what makes you think me a "Naughty boy." What have I done or neglected to do that should call down upon my devoted head the title of "naughty boy." You are quite right in not laying at my door the charge of flattery for it is a commodity in which I take no stock and what I say to you (in earnest) you can consider as the actual truth and when I tell you that my regards for you are those of the purest friendship and that your letters are a fruitful source of joy and encouragement to me, I tell you only what you would readily believe. Could you see my naturally large mouth increase in size from right to left and left to right and then both ways at once while reading your letters and I don't stop with the first reading either. I have got to thank you for your forbearance with me for sending your letters home but I am not so much to blame as you might at first suppose for I would not be afraid to trust my life even in the keeping on one so kind and true as Sylvia has proven herself to be but when I take a second thought I realize that you are not as well acquainted with her as I am and can not be blamed for not wishing her to see your letters and I will make you a promise that she shall not see them only by your consent so you may write all about those air castles built by your imagination. Circumstances seem to forbid the possibility of my long wished for visit home and there will in that case be no other alternative but submission to my fate. We shall probably move early in the spring, in fact we are now under orders to be ready to march at a moments notice and there is now no chance for a leave as our allotted number have already gone and others are waiting their return to go themselves and leaves are granted only in very urgent cases so I will hardly be able to visit you this winter. Ain't you sorry for me? You didn't tell me anything about that Rev. minister, King. What did he do to merit the wrath of so kind a girl as Hattie? I have heard nothing about it. You ask what I mean by asking if Melissa reads letters to you, this wording is capable of a double meaning, especially as it was not punctuated but my meaning was does Melissa read any of the letters which you receive from me. It makes no difference of course only I know she was aware of our correspondence with each other. On the envelope which contained Melissa's letter I though your pen had done the directing but may be I was mistaken but I saw the letters H.M.R. huddled up in the corner as though they were afraid of being seen. The order has just come to me to issue three days rations and the men are to take eighty rounds of ammunition and two days of forage preparatory to moving. Now for the tug of war, it isn't very pleasant to think that we must leave our comfortable quarters and take to the fields for no one knows how long in the midst of winter, but it is the lot of the soldier and I'll warrant there will be more laughing than crying over the event for they are accustomed to making the best of everything and think everything for the best. But I must close this letter hoping to hear from you soon. Give my regards to Melissa and remember me as ever Your True Friend

Dwight

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