Litchfield enquirer., 1864-08-25
Our Army Correspondence.
HEAD QUARTERS, ARMY OF THE POTOMAC, l
 18th August, 1864.


 18th August, 1864. ] | DEAR ENeU1RER,-After two hours ride through drenching rain, with the episode of getting immersed to the ears, swimming my horse throug swollen stream, propose to renew my correspondence with you. So if this is 2 :" long" letter, it will be the fault of nature, not of circumstances. A perfect torrent of rain, as though some had |" knocked the bottom out'' of the clouds, lasting for an hour or two, is the daily pro
 gramme now. And, by some inscrutable pre. ) gidence, this daily visitor a1wa1sys finds my fellow ''quill driyers.- and myself eat home f tlti the saddle and "pours cold water" or an enthusiastic pursuit of knowledge. It costs some sacrifice of pride, after this, with ou, unmentionables hung up in row to dry, and ou. "mortal bodies" wrapped in woolen blan ? that "t the Army of the Potomac was again made grateful this afternoon by beautiful and abundant shower of rain," or something like that. Yet believe the representatives in the army of the loyal prass of the North were never known to grumbIe at any fortune that brings relief and joy to our sick or faint or weary soldiers. Every day that spend among them, marching through the hos pitfalls or creeping along the batt1e-line, u1akes me love them and their cause more dearly.
 Six week ago tomorrow I left these head quarters for vacation among the hills o1 Connecticut. Returning. try to trace the intervening history of this army. Every corps has somewhat changed position5- soms have been relieved; a sanguirary battle has been fought; hospitals have been newly filed and emptied new graves have opened yet thers is the same batle-line, not materially advan- ced, the same rebel batteries look out from the 1 barren hills, the same sul1en city lifts its church spires through the foliage. Do you say there has surely been no advance towards the object of this struggle? There surely has. The army has had month of rest-rest that was necessary to its future progress. The rebel General, compelled to scatter his weak ensd army for safety and sustenance, now finds it every where menaced by an overwhelming force. With his hand upon his time-tried sa- bre, Sheridan comes sweeping down upon them through the Shenandoah, followed by the best blood and brains of the North Han cock, with troops that have never quailed, has his hand upon their capital; Warren is-where they wish him not while Meade, the eagle eyed, from his serie among these stalworth pines, looks down upon his prey. The unfor' tunate repulse of the 9th corps gave no impor- tant advantage to the enemy. The enterprise was important only if successful its highest significance now is in the lesson it has placed upon the record, against the old crime Of drunkenness among commanding generals.
 lis in spite of all these drawbacks that our nation is to overcome treason: and because or these the victory will be the more sublime.
 In the next room, fair-haired, blue-eyed child of southern luxury, lies dying of typhoid fever. A friend of his widowed mother bends over him. She, whose only boy lies here gasp ing in the clutch of death, is beyond our lines, within the rebel city. The fortunes of war have parted them, and God alone can ever place again her orphan boy within her bosom. Strange forms have waited at his bed side, the l hands of those whom he had learned to hate pressed his brow; g" a"yankee surgeon" from distant camp, through heat and rain and darkness, has daily sought and cared for him; and the chaplain of New England regiment, I who has often offered prayer beside his cot, will read the ritual at his grave. We have all learned to love that boy; we sigh at his death; we shall weep at his grave; and upon the head-beard, beneath the name of Samuel Whitmors," our hearts will inscribe, "sit tibi terra levis'' H.a,w.
 H ja aa;d fho% Adrr;rol n.hlr,.c hos haon