Letter to Laura Ann Arnold (Jackson)

Containers:

Box 1, Folder 39

Scope and content:

Written from VMI, Lexington, Virginia. Letter regards a missing package, family news, and a vocal concert.

Language:

English

Other descriptive data:

Va. Military Institute
Lexington, Va. May 14, 1852

My dear Sister,
Your welcome letter had been received; but you do not give me definite instructions about garden seed, grafts etc. But I should think that it would be useless to get any for you unless they are such as I can convey in person for you may judge of the difficulty of getting anything from Lexington to Beverly from the fact that though I have used effort upon effort to procure the box which you sent to me and have told the stage driver to spare no expense in procuring it, yet from his negligence or from some other cause it has not yet come to hand.

I wish that you would either get Miss H. to take it back to Beverly on her return, or else send a servant with it to the stage office at Staunton and have it sent to me put on the way bill and directed to me at Lexington, Va. to the care of E. Porter.

I have recently received a letter from Cousin Margaret Neale, which states that she is engaged in teaching a school and that all our relations are well and that Cousin Lizzie Neale, daughter of Uncle Minor is on a visit and that she will probably remain North all summer.

I hope that by this time your health is entirely restored. Though my manner of living is very abstemious, yet health has not returned with all its blessings. Yet I am much better than when I last bid you good bye.

Remember me very kindly to Mr. A. & family. Tell Thomas and Grace that their aunt does not say a single word about either of them.

The weather had been very pleasant for the past few days, though the present one is not remarkably agreeable as a part of the time is sunshine and a part rainy and the balance is a mixture of both. In Beverly there is probably snow to be seen even this late in May.

This evening we are to be favored with a vocal concert. I wish that you could accompany me. I believe that as yet you had not been informed of my daily exercise. I have to walk about a mile and a half for each meal: 3/4 to and 3/4 from it. And in the morning I usually walk about a mile and a half before breakfast and in the afternoon about two miles or more before tea.

Your brother,
Thomas

Subjects:

Virginia Military Institute—Faculty—19th century
Correspondence

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