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[i] Wood was correct, but the US came very close to war with Spain in 1872, known as the “Virginius dispute with Spain.” The merchant ship Virginius, commanded by Captain John Fry, a U.S. citizen, and flying the American flag, was captured by the Spanish gunboat Tornado. Claiming that the vessel was aiding Cuban rebels, Spanish authorities executed Fry, 36 of the crew members, and 16 passengers. Resisting intense pressure to declare war on Spain, Grant secured a successful arbitration of the matter, including an indemnity and apology from the Spanish government, November 28, 1873. Authorities later discovered that the Virginius was owned by Cubans, was illegally registered, and had no right to fly the American flag. [See Ulysses S. Grant Interpretive Outline by Frank Scaturro of the Grant Monument Association.] The U.S. nearly declared war on Great Britain again, too. The Treaty of Ghent (1812) and its successors to the last, the Treaty of Washington which  disputed the boundary lines of Texas, California, Mexico, the Pacific Northwest and British Columbia was at last settled by the Emperor of Germany who adjudicated the argument.

[ii] Like many young men at West Point or Annapolis following the Civil War, Wood ‘s idyllic view of war and glory spelled the opportunity for promotion. The irony of the young cadet’s remarks is almost too much to bear. When the U.S. went to war against Spain nearly 30 years later, Wood adamantly opposed the war fought in Cuba and the Philippines. Many of his cadet classmates and fellow officers from the West were by then the colonels and generals in command, leading the invasion of the Philippines from his former garrison at Vancouver Barracks.

 

[iii] Hannah Wood Morgan was one of the few Wood or Smith family members who supported the couple’s future engagement and wedding plans. Sister Hannah  became a lifelong friend to Nannie.

 

[iv] The source of  Wood’s  quoted words is unknown. He may have simply been teasing Nan and pretending to quote rumors or gossip.

 

 

U.S.M.A.  West Point, N.Y.

     Dec. 24^th 1872[iv]

 

‘Tis the night before Christmas and indeed dear Miss Nannie the turmoil of the early evening has subsided and it seems as though not a creature was stirring not even a mouse Here sit I alone with my darling Miss Nannie to usher in Christmas with all its bright enjoyments and hallowed associations, hoping that to her it may be a day fraught with all manner of happiness. It is now five minutes of eleven and I have just five minutes left in which to tell you so much Oh! so much.

I want to tell you how eagerly I catch myself wishing to be with you on this night, this wish is ever present to me, and then crowd upon me a thousand regrets and the memory of my utter disappointment to think that at least one cadet will walk the streets of Washington tonight and that cadet not I.

 

My few moments wing their way rapidly into eternity, as do all pleasures, but Thank Heaven they cannot keep me from you tomorrow and I shall be with you dear, dear Miss Nannie on blessed Christmas day, blessed to me because I can spend hours with you in no fear of “taps” or bugle calls.

 

Good night my little darling good night. May God keep you and bless you forever.

 

I pray that you may have sweetest dreams and awake to their fullest realizations. Once more Good night.

                                                     E.W.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

U.S.M.A.  West Point, N.Y.

          Dec. 25^th 1872[iv]

 

Merry Christmas Miss Nannie! How I wish I could say that to you. Well, well, I wish it all the same. Now you must tell me all you did on Christmas and all about your pretty presents and in fact everything connected with yourself and in order that you may have no excuse for not doing so I will tell you what little I did. I went to the hotel and saw Miss Buckmaster and several other young ladies and we danced a little, talked a little and flirted not at all. I went to a Keno and a faro bank merely because I was so ennuyé that I did not know what else to do. I left very soon and came to my room and began a sketch of it. I went to dinner and came back to spend the rest of the day with the most agreeable company I can find and infinitely prefer this to going back to the hotel as I promised to do, for I intended to write to you tonight. You see my Christmas is nothing more, with the exception of the present, than a quiet stupid day. I have reason to be thankful that I have but one more, to spend here, that’s one more Christmas, many stupid days I am afraid. I heard that your friend Miss Annie Barnes was to have been at the hotel last night but she was not I know. Addie’s german I hope was a perfect success. Did you enjoy yourself very much or was it to be tonight? Well if it is I hope that you will have a grand time and be perfectly well in the morning. (that last I think shows great consideration on my part) Please dance a waltz or two for me and if it would not be too hard on your partners, try and imagine that it is with me you are dancing.

 

But I forget. Before you get this letter your “german” will be over I have been reading your letter and that part in which you say how strange it would be to visit my home and see nothing of me set me off in a long, long day dream. I began by thinking how strange it would be for me to visit Atamasco and see no sign of you anywhere, to hear no sound of your voice.

 

Oh it would seem so very, very strange. As if some sunbeam, that brightened the whole house, had vanished leaving a gloom strange by contrast. And then my thoughts reverted as they are ever doing to the first time I ever saw you, that queer call, that unseasonable call, made when you, like the Roman matrons, were devoting your energies to industry (I don’t believe though that the Roman matrons had sewing machines.) That call, made partly through politeness and partly – shall I confess it – through curiosity. I wanted to see what sort of young ladies were coming to spend their summer or a part of it at least next door to me. And do you know what amused me most, I laughed at it long after I left the house, it was the way you ordered me to have that colt taken out of the pasture field and groomed. The last thing you said to me out in the hall was about that colt. I felt very much hurt. By the way what is the latest news from Miss Fannie?[iv] You have not said anything about her for a long time. Do you think it probable that you will go to Europe in the Spring? That would indeed be a disappointment. Indeed you must not let me expect you up to the very time and then write that you are not coming. No please tell me as soon as you know yourself or as soon as you can at least.

 

If you should go it is a pity you go just as my brother comes home. I wanted him to meet you. How interesting it would have been if you could have met as strangers at Nice or Naples or Paris or some of those places and find out that each knew all about Owings Mills, Rosewood Glen and Atamasco, Dr. Wood and Miss Sarah.

 

Who will you go with when you go? I don’t see how you can go, you know your[stet] engaged to me for the 28^th german and I absolutely refuse to forget or break the engagement. So you see your destiny is settled.

 

I don’t know whether I ever answered your question in regard to Sister Hannah. Mother tells me that she (sister) has a seamstress at the house and as soon as she is ready she is going in to New York. I presume from that that she will not visit Washington. I had a very interesting letter last week from Miss Sallie Jewett telling me all about her new life, the little oddities and jokes from the Green room etc. and altogether making a very pleasant epistle. I had not heard from her before since long before I went on furlough and although I have seen her name frequently mentioned in the papers it was more satisfactory to hear from her personally.[iv]

 

Why can’t I be alone with you undisturbed for an hour or two? I declare it makes me petulant the way I am continually interrupted. It is release from quarters now and so I am at every one’s mercy. I have lots to tell you yet and now I know that I will not have time, however, I certainly have none to waste in fretting about it.

 

The second of next month you know my examinations begin and then will be decided whether I am to stay till June or to have a New Year’s leave of indefinite extension.

 

Two examinations to pass and then it only depends on my life whether I graduate or not, for once a first classman you’ll graduate if you only live.

 

I presume you will be in Baltimore when you receive this. Please remember me to the Belts if you see them and give my love to Mrs. Belt. Will you have the kindness to give my regards to any of our friends that you may see, particularly Miss Bessie Tysen.

 

Another pest has been introduced into my life as if Dame Fortune had not treated me harshly enough in dooming me to these two years of exile and imprisonment. Now has she sent an attendant fiend in the shape of a French horn -- or a cornet or some such brazen instrument of torture -- which has locked up in it the rickety (Made a mistake, n’importe) tune of “Champagne Charlie” which tune a plebe tries to force out of the wretched instrument and it groans and shrieks in agony. The plebe will get out two or three bars and then after a deadly pause, which leaves me in agony, he begins again and gets this time a little farther, stops again, while I can feel my hair rising, begins again and so on ad infinitum.

 

If he drives me to desperation I am going to pitch either him or his horn out of the window. That fiddle and this wretched wretched horn are wearing on me. Oh if it only could blow something besides “Champagne Charlie.”

 

I hope that your friend Mr. Bass indeed I may say your friends Messieurs Bass are well. This freezing weather probably agrees with them as they always appeared cold during the heat of last summer. First rate fellows, though, if they are so stately, very obliging, too. I know one of them drove a lady friend of mine from Owing Mills to Baltimore in the pouring rain. Still after all that deserves no praise he must have [been] very happy in his companion, his skies could be in her eyes and the only rain he should dread should fall from them.

 

 

My room mate, sitting on the corner of the table resting his chin on his hand, looked just now so very sad and pensive so unusually thoughtful, that I said, “What are you thinking of Governor? I was thinking, said he, how many little stomachs there were aching tonight throughout the United States.[”]

 

There is but one step from the sublime to the ridiculous – I thought he was thinking of the quick flight of all earthly pleasures be they great or small into that Shadow land where leaden clouds envelope all things sooner or later.

 

Indeed there are but two periods of life the past and the future you know that is my opinion or rather my creed, the past irrevocable, the future to be moulded as we will and have strength to do or to personate them. The past sad eyed and pensive flinging us across the ever widening chasm [of] flowers whose sweet perfume recalls our senses to the life of other days, one by one they fail to reach us and fall into the abyss till we are left desolate. And then more than at any other time I think do we stretch our hands eagerly toward the golden haired smiling Future that floats wantonly before us, now dim in a cloud but again glittering brighter than ever in the sunshine, ever tempting us to rush forward, blindly forgetting that a gulf separates us from her, too. Thus are we balanced on a narrow ever shifting ledge between two gulfs which ledge, to choose that will have it so, is the Present, A myth.

 

Here I have run on, blotting down my fancies, forgetting that I was writing a letter and not an essay on Past & Future till I am sure I have wearied you, but I’ll make no excuse for if I have wearied you I am inexcusable and if I have not I have reason to be thankful. Now my dear Miss Nannie I have double lessons to learn tomorrow in both Mechanics and “Chem”. I must therefore say that sad word -- Goodbye. No I will not say it. I will for once be a good Christian and look eagerly forward to Easter and as we say to the flowers that we know Spring will bring back to us so say I to you – au revoir.

 

                             Ever Yours Fondly,

                                         C,E,S, Wood,

 

P.S. As usual, I have written this as fast as my pen could drive and have no time to look over it. There are doubtless Many mistakes. I pray you to excuse the seeming carelessness.

                                                     E.W.