If I have time I will write you from Washington or New York before long, to which places I am called by some little business matters. You absolutely must write me as soon as you can; when I don't hear from you it makes me sad and gloomy. If you have not received my long letters I will copy them off again.
Your devoted brother, etc.
December 23, 1861.8
The universal aspect of our country is really sad and mournful. A year ago here was a great united nation, prosperous and fortunate, and from a material point of view full of hope for its future glory; to-day we see it in a manner dislocated and reduced to fragments, and a beautiful land, once rich in the flowers and fruits of a peaceful agriculture, is now splashed with blood and blackened by devastating fires. Examine the map of the United States that I left at St. Michael College; throughout the great expanse from the Potomac to the Rio Grande and from the Atlantic to the Missouri, the voice of legal justice is dumb, replaced by the incessant sound of the beating drum and the deafening noise of artillery. In all this vast space the power of the law is de facto annulled. The law has had to make way for arms. Let us, however, take comfort; a piece of good news, coming from the highest source, announces that the calamities with which the land is afflicted are rapidly drawing near their close; that the same almighty arm that sustained the cause of Washington and his brave soldiers, to establish the glorious Constitution, will not be withdrawn from their children in a not less difficult war for its maintenance. For the moment, assuredly, we live in the shadow of a very heavy cloud, black and gloomy, which seems to envelop the entire nation as in a shroud. But please God,
6 Extract from letter in French to Father Boeteman of Brussels.