Letter, Bliss Family Collection

Letter, Bliss Family Collection

Object number2000.080.18

DateAugust 2, 1862

Mediumpaper and ink

DimensionsOverall: 16 x 10 in. (40.6 x 25.4 cm)

Credit LineOld State House Museum collection

Terms

DescriptionLetter from Charles S. (?) in San Francisco to his siblings. Charles asks about family members and friends. The letter speaks of the Civil War and the writer's Unionist stance. He also discusses his memories of people and places from the past.

San Francisco
Aug. 2, 1862

Dear Brother & Sister -
It has been a long time since we received a line from you and I thought I would write you a few lines and endeavor to provoke an answer. Maria and myself are enjoying excellent health at present and we hope sincerely that you and yours are as highly favored. We rec'd a letter from Martha a few weeks since, but she said nothing about our Maine friends. I have rec'd no letter from home for several months and I am at a loss to know what is the reason. I feel extremely anxious to hear from my brothers but I cannot learn anything from them either from home or from any other source. We are also very anxious to know what has become of Carolina & her husband in that hotbed of treason. We have had no satisfactory news from them since the war broke out. I am happy to learn that Martha's husband is a sound Union man. If he was not, I should pray that she might be left a widow in the shortest possible time. I have no sympathy or feeling for Secessionists and if my brother was one, I should be delighted to hear that some good Union ball had made him a head shorter. Any man who could deliberately wish to bring ruin upon this, the best, the most liberal, the most beneficent government that the world ever looked upon deserves not to live one moment after the traitorous wish is formed. We have but few of the Scoundrel gang here in California and the few that are here dare not utter their infernal sentiments, except in darkness and in company of their own pestilent gang. I suppose you are still living in the same little cottage where I saw you last. That dear little cottage; how many pleasant memories well up in my heart as I bring it before my minds eye, as it was when I last saw it. Oh the good times we used to have there in days long past, good times that soften the heart to think of, but which we can never hope to enjoy again. I shall never forget that dear little cottage though I should live to the age of Methusaleh. The little parlor where Carrie & I used to exhaust all our talent in the effort make the very ugliest specimens of the human (?) that imagination could create, the sitting room where so many songs were sung and so many stories were told, and the kitchen where the famous chicken pie was cooked that created such commotion in the family. The barn, the orchard, the woods all come up before my mind as vividly as if I had seen them but yesterday. How many changes have taken place since then. The children have grown up to be men and women, some of them with children of their own, and how many of those familiar forms and faces we loved so well to look upon, have passed away from earth to return no more forever. Well, such is life and however much we may (?) and sigh for old times and old scenes and associations, they will never return to us and our only consolation is the pleasure which we receive in calling them again to mind and dwelling with mental rapture upon the scenes of other days. I have gone off on a tangent and entirely departed from my usual course in letter writing. I do not often write such solemncholly [sic] letters. I love to make people laugh rather than look glum but sometimes I have a bilious attach and that must be my excuse on the present occasion. I expect that Maria will pull my whiskers for not leaving room for her to write a few lines but I am determined to have the sheet all to myself and use every inch of it. Tell Emma that I want her to sit down and write me a good long letter and if she will do so, I will write her one of the funniest letters she ever heard of in return. Maria's health is better this summer than it has been before, since she has been in the country. She is big, fat and lazy. I have to hire a girl to do the work for her while she sits around in her carriage as big as you please making calls on her Black Republican friends. She has got to be a regular tartar and the other day just because I did something that she didn't like, she threw a whole tub of dishwater on me. No tongue can tell how I am abused by that woman. Give my love to all friends and write soon.
From your affectionate Brother
Chas. S. Weggin(?)

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