Metadata
Title
David E. Hale to Sarah Josepha Hale
Date
1830/1839-03-17
March 17 [1830s]
Subject
Hale, Sarah Josepha Buell, 1788-1879
Medium
Manuscripts
Language
eng
Type
text
Collection
Sarah Josepha Hale Collection, The Athenaeum of Philadelphia
Identifier
46-M-169
Rights
http://www.philaathenaeum.org/rights.html
Text
Annapolis March 17th
My dear Mother,
You complain and justly too that
I do not write often. The fact is that I do not like
to write - I am ashamed that I have been unable to
keep my promise to send you on my birth day $100, and have
delayed writing till the end of March when I am sure
to be able to send you at least $50.
Besides your hopeful son has been
for the last three months engaged in a continual round
of fashionable dissipation. Balls, parties, Routes, [etc.] besides
being in love two or three times and, 'don't mention it'
near being jilted, that is if he had been fool enough
to have proposed.
The young ladies here are less learned
& literary than those at the North but more beautiful
and attractive. I have seen assembled here in one
room at a gentlema's [gentleman's] house more beautiful girls than
you can find in the whole city of Boston!
They dont talk so much of books, news [etc.]
but more of love, engagements, weddings courtship [etc.]
they are not afraid to act either, and can set a
man's heart on fire quicker than the cold, stiff
reserved ladies of New England
You ask me how I spent my [twentieth?] birth day
not so pleasantly as you and my brother did with your friends
certainly, I was riding in a class carriage on a cold day
from Baltimore to Annapolis. I have been to Baltimore
to sit on a Court Martial for a week and was returning
in haste to be present at the Governors Route and a
wedding party both of which were to take place on
the same day. My necessary expenses had overrun my
allowance about $30 and I had like a fool with some
brother officers spent more in amusements [etc.] - I was
thinking if "ways & means' and of you, of my promise and cursing
my folly in spending what would have assisted my brother
much in defraying college expenses.
However I arrived
at Annapolis, put in my uniform, when to the Route and
party danced, looked gay, flirted with my old mistress, a
beautiful girl in presence of her future husband, was
sought after by the ladies as all young officers [DE: ?] are here,
selected one to compensate me for my loss, drank more
wine than I out to keep my spirits up, went home to
bed, 'but I bitterly thought of the morrow' of debts unpaid
[etc.] Pray Mother don't lecture me for as old Stapleton
says "Human nature is human nature".
But the gay season is
now over, the Legislature is about to adjourn, the members
are departing and carrying with them those whom business
or pleasure brought to this City. One more cottillion [cotillion] party,
one more wedding party which by the way, is for a brother
officer & friend and the gaiety [DE: ?] ceases for the present and
I shall settle down quietly to economise my time & money
write to you once a week and be a good boy. -
I do not intend to go home till I am at least
twenty one, paid my debts got $500 in my pocket and
be at least five higher on the [Army?] list. Then you
may expect me. Promotion is rapid in our regiment; I
have gained one step since I wrote you last. But there
is a better thing [offers?] for me - It is this, and I don't wish
you to mention even to Lt. F.A. Smith. A Topographical Corps
is to be formed. It would have been formed at the last of [Congress?] session
had it lasted longer as the bill had alread passed the Senate
reading. Well, next year I shall get a furlough, [DE: ?] go to
Washington and as everything in these times and under this
blessed government goes by favor and influence of powerful
friends, I shall get Woodbury or some one of the great
men to forward my application & If I get in [then] I
shall have the pay of a first Lieut. and have [ED: page damaged]
opportunities of being employed at the same time on
[?] good business as a Civil Engr than I could in any
other situation. In [?] I shall have enough
to do and in several ways in the West & elsewhere have
a chance to make a fortune.
I have now written
you a long letter, - I shall write soon to
Frances Ann - Give my love to my brothers -
sisters and believe me truly
Your affectionate Son
D.E. Hale
Lieut. U.S.A.
My dear Mother,
You complain and justly too that
I do not write often. The fact is that I do not like
to write - I am ashamed that I have been unable to
keep my promise to send you on my birth day $100, and have
delayed writing till the end of March when I am sure
to be able to send you at least $50.
Besides your hopeful son has been
for the last three months engaged in a continual round
of fashionable dissipation. Balls, parties, Routes, [etc.] besides
being in love two or three times and, 'don't mention it'
near being jilted, that is if he had been fool enough
to have proposed.
The young ladies here are less learned
& literary than those at the North but more beautiful
and attractive. I have seen assembled here in one
room at a gentlema's [gentleman's] house more beautiful girls than
you can find in the whole city of Boston!
They dont talk so much of books, news [etc.]
but more of love, engagements, weddings courtship [etc.]
they are not afraid to act either, and can set a
man's heart on fire quicker than the cold, stiff
reserved ladies of New England
You ask me how I spent my [twentieth?] birth day
not so pleasantly as you and my brother did with your friends
certainly, I was riding in a class carriage on a cold day
from Baltimore to Annapolis. I have been to Baltimore
to sit on a Court Martial for a week and was returning
in haste to be present at the Governors Route and a
wedding party both of which were to take place on
the same day. My necessary expenses had overrun my
allowance about $30 and I had like a fool with some
brother officers spent more in amusements [etc.] - I was
thinking if "ways & means' and of you, of my promise and cursing
my folly in spending what would have assisted my brother
much in defraying college expenses.
However I arrived
at Annapolis, put in my uniform, when to the Route and
party danced, looked gay, flirted with my old mistress, a
beautiful girl in presence of her future husband, was
sought after by the ladies as all young officers [DE: ?] are here,
selected one to compensate me for my loss, drank more
wine than I out to keep my spirits up, went home to
bed, 'but I bitterly thought of the morrow' of debts unpaid
[etc.] Pray Mother don't lecture me for as old Stapleton
says "Human nature is human nature".
But the gay season is
now over, the Legislature is about to adjourn, the members
are departing and carrying with them those whom business
or pleasure brought to this City. One more cottillion [cotillion] party,
one more wedding party which by the way, is for a brother
officer & friend and the gaiety [DE: ?] ceases for the present and
I shall settle down quietly to economise my time & money
write to you once a week and be a good boy. -
I do not intend to go home till I am at least
twenty one, paid my debts got $500 in my pocket and
be at least five higher on the [Army?] list. Then you
may expect me. Promotion is rapid in our regiment; I
have gained one step since I wrote you last. But there
is a better thing [offers?] for me - It is this, and I don't wish
you to mention even to Lt. F.A. Smith. A Topographical Corps
is to be formed. It would have been formed at the last of [Congress?] session
had it lasted longer as the bill had alread passed the Senate
reading. Well, next year I shall get a furlough, [DE: ?] go to
Washington and as everything in these times and under this
blessed government goes by favor and influence of powerful
friends, I shall get Woodbury or some one of the great
men to forward my application & If I get in [then] I
shall have the pay of a first Lieut. and have [ED: page damaged]
opportunities of being employed at the same time on
[?] good business as a Civil Engr than I could in any
other situation. In [?] I shall have enough
to do and in several ways in the West & elsewhere have
a chance to make a fortune.
I have now written
you a long letter, - I shall write soon to
Frances Ann - Give my love to my brothers -
sisters and believe me truly
Your affectionate Son
D.E. Hale
Lieut. U.S.A.