Halliburton, John Wesley, b. 1840
Page 1
Chapel
Hill
March the 6th
My Darling.
You have consented to let one
sunday pass
without giving to me the accustomed salute. I have not been well at ease since
Ed's letter was recieved. He said that you were very
sorry. My Darling is it always my fault to bring grief and sadness where smiles
and bubling joy should reign? Am I so unfortunate as to always be the bearer of
evil tidings to those most dear to me? My own darling that letter was not
written to bedew your eyes with tears, twas not my intention to harrow up your
tenderest sentiments by penning a cruel letter.
2
Oh! my darling why is it that we cannot be entirely happy? Why is it that so
many things conspire to add to your grief while I can add so little to your
joys? I want you to be happy my darling. I strive to make you so. My thoughts
are all with you—and all that I do I act as if Cousie was to see what I
had done and as my actions warranted love me. I
was was mad then. I was sorry to know
that I could not hear from and write to you. And then darling you told me to
tell you all and when I promised would you want me to violate it. No! my
darling. you are the only one to whom I can unbosom myself to—you are the
only one that will share with me the sorrows which have been my inseperable
companion from childhood till now
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My heart has
taught itself to look to you when grief-laden and sad its seeks for sympathy
& consolation. I have promised darling to tell you all my joys and sorrows.
My joys you know for your letters are my only joy now. Darling, Cousie do you
blame me for writing that letter? Do you think I wrote it as a cruel jest.
Ed wrote as tho' I deserved the severest censure for
acting as I did. I did not mean to hurt you my darling. I only told my feelings
as they were but I did not think about yours suffering likewise. I want to hear
from you my darling.
Ed said you passed a sleepless night—in
tears—in agony! Oh! my own my darling Cousie I must needs be a very cruel
man to cause you such suffering. A lifetime of the utmost tenderness and care
can not eradicate the deep solem debt that I owe to you. My life is yours my
darling, my all, my hopes; I'm, darling, all yours. Yet this is not enough. I
feel that the sacrifice (no its no sacrifice) rendering up of my all to Heaven
to buy you a home there would be but little. I am, darling,
your
Cousie
.
The thought that I so frequently wound so deeply your feeling is a
punishment [adaqate]
3 to
all my crimes. The joy I feel in adding to your happiness is a sufficient
return for the means employed—the self-reproch that racks me when I bring
tears to your eyes is its
rew own
reward. Darling you must write to me now and tell me that you do not censure me
for that letter.
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Darling please write at least once a week. I cant bear
disappointment now. I have expected a letter from you every week. Dont
disappoint me now my darling. Father never writes—I cant hear from
home—then darling not to hear from you (equal to all the world) will be
too bad. As long as you write to me I can bear up under all of Fortune's
freaks.
When you write all is joy and love—when you write I feel
indipendent of all the world. When you write
Chapel
Hill is bearable—be silent and the
reverse is my doom.
I have nothing interesting about myself to tell you. I heard from
Wilbur yesterday. He has not yet heard of
Fannie's determination.
4 I
hope you will write him all about. He has never recieved the letter that you
sent him the day I left there or about that time. He clammors loudly for a
letter. Cant he get one? I write to him every week. He said nothing about going
to
Desare. I
guess he has declined that Idea, I heard from
Mary
Bowers of
Durhamsville
Tenn yesterday. She writes a v
ery nice
letter, but is not very select in her choice of topics.
Linda
Buck wont write to me.
Jimmie
Garrison has not written in two weeks.
Dr
Bradford is a long time silent
Hall and
Jonnie
are very very remiss. I hope the mails are not so careless as to loose my
letters. I write one every day but dont get one in three days scarcely. I am
not
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as well satisfied as I was some weeks ago. I
will not tell any more of my misfortunes.
I have seen
Lincoln's inaugural. It declares that he will collect the revenue and
hold on to UNS property.
5 It
amounts to coersion. Still it does not make me a secessionist only an
anti-Lincoln man. His life is of less value than the
Union. I
can hate him and still love the
Union. We
must not dissolve a Government because it has one traitor in its borders. Do
away with the traitor and hold on to the Government. I have a hard time here
about politics. I am assailed and attacked by all the boys that I meet, I
verily believe that I am the only union man in College I have to fight for
Tennessee
myself and the
Union. I
strive hard. I am loth to be conquered. Daily am I engaged in a wordy war with
some two or three and I just slash right and left, like
Sir
Amiot, and never loose or gain anything. I begin to think that we are
all right, all of us. Our Segnior Speakin begins upon the 23
rd
of April. on the first day of may I will be done with books. Soon darling
I'll see you. Cheer up love! Cheer up my darling! Give my love to all.
I want to kiss you darling
Cousie
Endnotes:
1.
John Wesley Halliburton Papers, SHC. These papers contain
thirty-eight letters written by
Halliburton
to his second cousin and fiancée
Juliet
Halliburton of
Little
Rock, AR, between January 31, 1861, and May 13, 1861. Someone has
arranged them in chronological order and numbered the pages from 1 to 174.
2. In a March 1, 1861, letter
Halliburton
had argued against the pro-secessionist stance
of several newspaper clippings that
Cousie
had sent to him: "Such a tissue of absurdities I have never seen printed.
If you have to depend upon such papers as these for your information I no
longer wonder that you are a 'Holy secessionist.' Had I no premises but these I
too would join the cry 'Dissolution!' "
Halliburton
also apologized in a March 7, 1861, letter for
upsetting
Cousie
with the report that a bill had been introduced in the
US House of Representatives suspending mail in the
seceded states (
John Wesley Halliburton Papers, SHC.).
3. Several characters have been written on top of one another
between qand t.
5.
President
Abraham Lincoln was inaugurated on March 4,
1861. His inaugural address argues that no state or group of states has a legal
right to secede from the
Union:
"I hold, that in contemplation of universal law, and of
the
Constitution, the Union of these States is perpetual. Perpetuity is
implied, if not expressed, in the fundamental law of all national governments.
It is safe to assert that no government proper ever had a provision in its
organic law for its own termination" (
55). Given this premise, "The
power confided in me will be used to hold, occupy, and possess the property and
places belonging to the government, and to collect the duties and imposts; but
beyond what may be necessary for these objects, there will be no
invasion—no using of force against or among the people
anywhere" (
56).