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ASHAEL SUMNER DEAN

 CIVIL WAR LETTERS TO HIS FAMILY

 

 

 

July 24 1864 Sunday   Off Charleston Bar

Dear Virginia,

  I am going to begin a little note not knowing when it may reach you.  I have not received your letters.  They are in Port Royal.  We have not been there for a week or more having been cruising to the Northward on dispatch duty.  We have been kept in here three days by a gale, the force of which is not yet spent.  After it is smooth enough we shall go North again, return here and then probably go to P.R  I very much question whether we got our mail for a week and quite as much whether we are able to sent North in this mail.  You will be as thankful as I to learn that we have been in a safe harbor in the storm and not on the angry sea.  I am sure I have not seen a more severe one.  This is its third day.  Today has been a quiet day, but a very dismal one..You see by the date it is Sunday.  I expect you  have been to church and heard good sermons and solemn prayers and then have spent a quiet evening with your birds sending a thought down to you sailor boy.  I am sure of it.  I have not heard anything to remind me of Sunday.  I read an account of the sufferings of the early Christians in the South of France, sung in the Cythera and read from Ephessians.  I must say I have felt more homesick than any day yet.  I was so foolish as to count back five months and then run forward a year.  It made me feel more lonesome.  Can I be apart from you a year from now?  When I thought of it I did wish so earnestly, but if God will bring me to you in a year safe and sound or in two I would not murmur.  I hope, I do not know. I would be happy and quite content.  Poor wife does not know where to place her boy now?  He does not know himself.  We go anywhere.  The other night we had come from Murrell's Inlet, a 170 mile haul, got almost into moorings at P.R. when we turned about and came here and have not been there since.  Now as soon as tis fair we are going up to the Inlet again.  We got good living again.  A beef schooner is here with beef and ice etc.  We are all well as can be expected and as happy as men can be in time of war away from those we love.

  I have seen enough of this station.  The sea is never quiet and we roll all the time.  I am seasick no more but it is very uncomfortable, e.g. to sit down in a chair and to be sent chair and all across the deck we have to secure everything.  I have seen Sumpter fired into until it is no longer a novelty.  Now I scarcely look at the track of a shell.  From the deck I can see the wharves and streets in Charleston, but I guess I wont go up there this fall.

  I believe we shall only do blockade duty and not often act in the offensive.  It is strange that in all our cruisings we never have seen a suspicious vessel.  We have gone nearly 6000 miles by the log and yet no prize have we taken.  Maybe we will yet.  I am not anxious for you to worry and work about my box.  I am in no hurry.  Any time will do.  I need nothing.  I have more need of your presence then anything.  Think you and babies come and see me some day?  I wrote to Holbrook yesterday.  I have not written to Louise, shall I?  I shall put more with this if I have a chance.  I love you dearly.  You are a dear good girl.  Happy is every man who has a wife half as good as you.  I love you more and more.  Good night, dear one                           

                                                                                                                Sumner

 

 

 

 

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March 2006

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