Lieut Robert S. Edwards
48th Reg^t N. Y. S. Volunteers

My dear Robin

     The past ten mails have failed to bring me anything from you, surely the one now almost due must be more kind —
     We have rumors that Savannah had been taken & I have read that your brigade had been ordered in that direction — I am getting very impatient for news from you
     With us things jog on in pretty much the same course Nellie keeps very well and I am thankful that we were able to move out into this pure and cooler air.
     Last evening I picked from

the bushes beneath our bedroom windows 18 beautiful Cape jessamines — Such a wealth of fragranc & beauty —
     Notwithstanding that we now are at such a distance from town we almost always have visitors at evening — Last night we had five callers, so that altho' Nellie does not go out she has a fair chance to hear of all that is going on —
     By the next mail I shall have some especial news to give you I do not have much anxiety about the result, and Nellie is in good spirits, which I think half the battle, still I shall be heartily glad when Nellie is safely thro' it all & up and about again —
     Ned is getting more up to his work & I think likes Manila life better than he did at first

For the past two months we have had plenty to do in the office and I have sent Ned to look after the Sugar we were shipping — This has varied his work and now that Geo. Peirce is to leave the office (not our employment) for a year or so Ned will have a chance to make himself useful — He is hardly acclimatised yet and until that stage is past it is impossible to judge how a tropical life will answer for him — His coming here has been of decided benefit to his character, and whether he stays or goes it has been time well spent.
     It is amusing to see how our cousin John Bull headed by his fugleman the "Times" is facing about on the American question — The federal victories in Tennessee have convinced the English

mind that the blockade is a reality — A queer way of getting at it tho' a satisfactory result.
     I have not read anything lately with greater pleasure than Mill's [i.e., John Stuart Mill's] article in the Feb^y no. of Frazer. A noble & true view of the question which is now distracting our country — Coming as it does from the first of living thinkers it carries with it not only the value & worth of the arguments there expressed but the moral force which his opinion carries gives even when barely stated, without reference to reasons — Besides Mill gives the key note to the rising men of the middle class in England and his opinion will go a great way to influence their sentiments —
     Well here I am on politics again — Good bye for the present

lovingly yours
Ogden Edwards

Sunday 18 May —

Dear Robin.

I have now by me your jottings to Annie of the 22d 27 & 31 Jan^y. We have news from New York by the regular mail up to the 12 March & via Cal^a up to the 19.
     I can well understand your impatience, but long ere this I trust you have found a good result to the long delay Was it not providential that the "Monitor" should have arrived at the Hampton Roads just as she did?
     I suppose that our next news from Sherman's division will be of the occupation of Savannah — We have had false reports of this for two mails back —
     Is it not shameful to see how the "Tribune" attacks Gen^l

Mcclellan? I get out of all patience with it. —
     What an amusing story you wrote about the alligator I hope that after you get to Savannah you may have had some variation to your Pork & molasses diet — Don't they give you beans? In Cal^a I used to cook beans by first boiling them in my camp Kettle and then stewing them with slices of fat pork in a frying pan — I assure you it is a first rate dish for a hungry man —
Dear Nellie continues well probably before another Sunday comes around I shall have to chronicle in our Bible the birth of our child — I wish Nellie was well over it but we trust in the same kind

Father who has & will care for us — I think that I wrote you that the little one if a girl is to bear our mother's name Catherine Shepherd — If a boy I think we will call him Herbert — Nellie was at first inclined to wish that it should be Ogden but I do not fancy the name — If I had thought to have given it the name of any of our family it should have been yours — my baby brother & little playmate of years bygone — I can hardly love this little one more than I did you — May God keep you dear till we meet again. My heart is full as I think of the many dangers which encompass you on every side — I know that you are in the path of duty and manfully doing your part — I would not have you doing otherwise — Your post was a soldiers one & I am

Sure you are filling it. "Gentlemen to the front," now if ever, is I know the word — Perhaps before this reaches you the war will be over. Then what will be your course? I fancy that a large part of our troops must be kept under arms for years to come. Will you continue as a soldier or return to civil life? — After the war is ended business will be likely to revive all over the world — It is already better here than it has been since the crisis of '57. —
     With a deal of love dear Robin from Nellie and from myself I send this along — It goes thro' Annie to whom I must now scribble a little. So good bye.

Very affectionately yours
Ogden E. Edwards