1862 September 4 Dranesville Fairfax County

Dranesville Fairfax County
   September 4th 1862
I have had no opportunity my own dearest wife
to send you a line for many days.  Now I am
writing without any positive knowledge of any
kind by which I can convey it to the post
office.  I hope you have received the short and
hurried note I wrote you from Brandy Sta-
tion in Culpepper County. I remained at that
place until Sunday morning the 31st of last
month. That morning I started Y marched to
Warrenton in Fauquier County, crossing the
Hazel Rifer at Starkes Mill and the Rappa-
hannock at the Fauquier White Sulphur Springs
Warrenton is a very beautiful country
village.  The ladies were especially rejoiced
to see us & delighted to be set free from
Yankee tyranny & yankee insolence.  The delight
of the women at the expulsion of the enemy has
struck me whenever we have been.  We left
Warrenton at 2 o'clock Monday morning and
marched by the battlefield of Saturday the
30th of August, camped on the old Braddock Road
five miles from Centreville.  Our army gave the
enemy a terrible blow on Saturday. His dead lay
upon some portions of the field in heaps.  My
company sergeant told me that at one place
in the length of a brigade he counted five
hundred and two dead Yankees.  Yesterday I
saw some of the Yankee surgeons who came on the
battle ground Monday under a flag of truce, and one
of them told me that great numbers of their
wounded still lay on the field that they had
been unable up to that time to remove.  I am
pleased to be able to say that our loss was
comparatively small.  Tuesday morning I
marched over to the Settle River Turnpike Y
in pursuit of the Enemy to Fairfax Court House
Last afternoon about 5 o'clock we left the
Court House & came in this direction about

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twelve miles. this morning we came to the pint
from which this letter is dated & have gone into
camp to give the horses & men rest for a day.
It is said this morning in camp that a portion of our
army is already across the Potomac. Whether
this be true or not I dont know.  That River
runs in three miles from this point.  I take
it for granted we shall attempt to cross
the Potomac and invade the North.  I pray
to God to bless our Arms and to make
us by His power to force from our
enemy an early and an honorable
peace.  If we can make the Yankees
feel the horror and miseries of this
war on their own soil and at their
own firesides I trust it will turn their
thoughts on peace.  In any event it will
be a great relief to our own bleeding
country to have the war transferred
from our own land to the land of
the enemy.
Since I arrived here this morning your
letter of the 15th of last month was handed
to me.  I had recd Y acknowledge in a former
note yours of the 19th.  I am troubled about
the health of the children and would give
much to hear from you and them: this long
separation without the means of regular
communication with each other is to me
painful in the extreme.  I try to cast my
sorrows on Him who alone can give us strength
to bear them and I pray to Him in mercy to
spare us all and to re-unite his in His
own good time.  Farewell, darling wife.
Kiss the children & Mary & Alice for me Love
to Mrs Riddle.  Remember me to the servants.  I
kiss you warmly & tenderly.  Yr affect husband
                              John T. Thornton

John Thruston Thornton, Colonel of the 3rd Virgina Cavalry

MSS 4021