Fairfax Station, Virginia March 24th, 1863

Dear Parents,

Today is a stormy, rainy, nasty kind of a day and I have nothing to do but read, write, and keep comfortable, which last I have been doing all day, taking things easy according to the best of my ability, and you must judge for yourselves whether that is easy or not. Alfred and Moses Baldwin have gone to the Station on guard today, and our shanty has been pretty much alone, nobody here but Surry and me, and we have done nothing but cut wood to last over Sunday, eat our hardtack, potatoes, salt hog, and beef, so we are not excessively fatigued, unless the fact that we were drawing $20 per month- work or no work, has a deleterious effect upon the constitutions of the boys.

I got a Bellows Falls Times today. I see by that that S.N. Swain has received some old papers from Drs. Scott and Story that came from Fairfax C. H. and presume that the grog bill of rum punch and cider was the same one that I sent you. Was it so? If it was, I hope that S.N. Levi will ponder well upon what the habits of the great great grandfathers of the first families of Virginia probably were, and form in his own mind a comparison between their habits and the habits and manners of their degenerate sons. But Virginia is altered now. Her stately mansions are in ruins or in ashes, her fields are deserts, and her once proud people have mostly skedaddled. Only here and there a solitary squatter with his ill tended cornfield, and roving cattle to keep up the appearances even, of peaceful habitation, while the deserted huts and fallen forests show where the roving soldier has had his temporary abiding place, and ever and anon the solitary chimney standing alone like some permanent landmark in the desolation around tells where the proud Virginian had his once stately mansion, and the planter's Nigs know him now no more forever, nor will ever know him, for Abraham in his wisdom hath seen fit to put his foot on such knowledge. Though the slave owner would have his chattel retain a knowledge of him as master, the instinct of freedom that comes welling up through every human breast has severed that connection forever.

Sunday evening: I have just finished my supper, put away the dishes, stretched myself a little, and now feel at peace with all the worlds myself, and the brigade band which is now playing on a hill over toward the Station....Do you want to know what we had for supper? Flapjacks, soft breads coffee, sugar and molasses, and might have had either "salt junk" or "dead hog meat" also. All the above mentioned articles were very good...we can beat the wide world on certain kinds of cookery under difficult circumstances. We have been skedaddling around the country- saw a big railroad bridge that had been destroyed by the Rebs, also a big sawmill in the same fix, as well as about a million Nigs who were basking in the sun, and enjoying themselves generally.

I have the promise of a pass to go into Washington some day before long. I mean to go with one of John Knight's tent mates, if we can get our passes through together. There can go only one from a company per day, so we cannot go with one of our own comrades. We are all well- growing fat and saucy. H.G. Day

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Contributed by Linda M. Welch, Dartmouth College, Windsor County researcher.

Return to the Index of Hezron's letters..

See also Hezron's biography, and his memoir of the Gettysburg Campaign.