1861 June 13 Lexington [Virginia]

[Written in the University of Virginia Autograph Album of Randolph Harrison McKim]

"What then is our hope?"

My Dear Ran

It needs not words ill written
to prove the depth of a true friendship. We know
it each of the other--May it continue so.
I cannot this last night be prolix--that
the calling I go to now may not prevent us
from meeting hereafter as "Leaders in the
Grand Army" is the wish of
Yours very truly
Sandie Pendleton
Lexington,
Virginia

June 13th 1861
On the eve of a departure
for the deliverance of
Maryland

"What then is our hope?" is a line from St. Augustine. Or Pendleton may possibly have been misquoting or rearranging a verse from Job Chapter 17 "And where is now my hope?"

Alexander "Sandie" Pendleton, 1840-1864, was a member of Stonewall Jackson's staff, and after Jackson's death in 1863, served on the staffs of Richard Ewell and Jubal Early. He was mortally wounded in the battle of Fishers Hill, September 1864.

His fellow University of Virginia classmate Randolph Harrison McKim, 1842-1920,served on the staff of General George Hume Steuart and as a chaplain in the Virginia Cavalry. Postwar he was an Episcopal rector in churches in New York City, Washington, New Orleans, and several Virginia localities and wrote "A Soldier's Recollections: Leaves from the Diary of a Young Confederate in which he confessed to being one of the students who raised the Confederate flag over the Rotunda."

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