1862 April 26 Navy Department Washington, D. C.

Navy Department
April 26th  1862
My dear Annie [Cabeen]
It is but a day or two
since I visited your father with a
severe infliction--The next day I re=
ceived your kind letter which, though
an answer to one from me, I will lose
no time in replying to and thanking
you for.  I am very sorry I can-
not be with you all during the happy
wedding season now approaching--but
if you will give me timely notice when
your turn has come I shall not fail
to be on hand--It appears as if all
the young men had not gone to the
wars.  At all events this has been a
great season for marriage in the District

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and whatever else may be said of
McClellans masterly inactivity, it has,
it cannot be denied, been very favorable
to the cause of the Union.
We are beginning to hear something
at last from David Porter's Mortar fleet, though
there is evidently an enormous exaggeration
as they did not have over 8 or 10,000 shells in the
whole fleet--& it is seldom that mortars can be
fired over 450 to 500 times before bursting--the rumor
here this morning (how it came, quieu sabe?)
is that one of the Mortar boats had passed up
above the forts: that fellow's fortune is made.
We have heard of no great Union victory
within the last five minutes.  Several were
reported yesterday, mostly in Arkansas,--but
were subsequently contradicted.--aerostatic Artillery
is becoming all the vogue since Fitz John P,'s great
balloon flight.  He now proposes to take up

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a Sea-coast howitzer which will be
suspended, muzzle downwards, under the
basket in which the operator will stand--
It is obvious tat at each fire the recoil
will send the balloon up several thou=
sand feet--while descending another charge
is put in , and fired as soon as the balloon
again approaches the earth, and so on
until the last shell is fired, when the balloon
will be so much lightened that it will easily
float off with the howitzer--By means of a
system of paddles, gearing, exhaust pipes &
thumbscrews, a complete command over the
movement of the balloon will be maintained
so that it can be guided with perfect certainty.
A shell that thus dropped will come down
it is thought, at near as possible, like a
thousand of brick--
Evy has not been well for over amonth[sic]


[page 4]
She was in bed when I returned from New York
Last month & has been there ever since--she
is getting stronger slowly--and will towards the
end of May go to some quiet, cheap & pleasant
place in the country a hundred or two miles
north of Mason & Dixie[sic] & take the children--We
have the pleasant anticipation of a pestilence this
summer.  There are somewhere between three or
four regiments of cavalry horses lying unburied
around our romantic suburbs, offering every en=
couragement to some young & enterprising soap
and bone factory man to establish himself here in
business--Government will  charge nothing for
the raw material--on the contrary it will keep
him supplied at the rate of $125 per horse.
Evy is writing to you--at least she told me
she would yesterday. Porter is counting the hours
that intervene between this & the 20th June.  The children
are all well--With kindest love to Mrs. Cabeen Mrs
Rowland and Cousin Louisa--and bien do chous do ma
part and pettits cabeens.  I remain tou devoue

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