July 11th 1862
My Dear Cousin Minnie
I delight to recur
to that pleasant era of the past when I was
allowed the honored privilege of addressing you
in terms of friendship, when the comforting words
of my absent “cousin” sustained my sinking
spirit and strengthened my overtasked powers
amid the many trials and toils of a soldiers life.
Pardon my boldness, presumption you may term it,
in venturing to address you once more, in penning
you an epistle not merely of friendship, but one
“de coeur,” –one which were I gifted with the pen
of genius, should contain “thoughts that breathe
and words that burn.” I adopt this mode of
expressing sentiments which I have not the
confidence to trust to a verbal utterance.
You could not have failed to perceive
in my past conduct an exhibition of my true
sentiments towards you, although you may not
at all times have been able to interpret them correctly
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and from a remark which I heard you re-
cently make I am led to believe that you did
not place a right interpretation on my actions.
I will now, if you will deign to listen, present
a full and free revelation of the truth.
It is with much trepidation and many secret misgivings
that I venture to reveal to you a sentiment
which I have entertained so long, and I hope you
will not mistake the modesty which prompts me
to couch it in a language not my own–Je vous
ami de tout mon coeur.–When I use this lan-
guage, believe, I entreat you,that it expresses the
truth. I will again repeat that I was surprised
when you made use of a certain remark in a
former conversation. I cannot now believe you
were in earnest knowing that you were cognizant
of certain facts which my past conduct could
not fail to make evident. Yes! I love you sin-
cerely, (forgive this candid avowal) and great
would my happiness be to know that the tender
sentiment which thrills my heart could find a
responsive echo in your won, whilst most miserable
would I be to know that I have loved so many
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years in vain, for my love is not the product of
a day nor shall it prove, I trust, as “frail as the
flower and fleeting as the gale.”
A frequent intercourse with you, which has
always proved to be of the most delightful character
and a gradual acquaintance with your many amia-
ble qualities has won you to my affections. It was the
knowledge that you possessed those heaven-born attri-
butes which elevates female character to almost angelic
loveliness and renders woman in the eyes of the good
more precious than the gem of the mind, that I rejoiced
in the honor of calling you friend, and it is this which
now moves me to ask that I may be rendered super-
latively happy by calling you more than friend, by
being encircled with you in stronger bonds than those
of friendship–even those of love.
These sentences are not the hasty utterances of the
moment–they are the deliberate results of long-enter-
tained convictions founded upon premises which I
hope shall never be shaken or uprooted as long as
goodness deserves to be loved and virtue to be com-
mended. But Oh! how great would be my wretched-
ness to know that I am basing my hopes of future
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earthly happiness on a mere chimera, an idle phantasy
of the brain–how deep would be my distress to
learn that can meet with no reciprocal emotion in
your own breast, that I have been mistaken in the
hope that you were not insensible of my affection for
you and that, perhaps, there might be, at least, a feeble
return of the love I so lavishly bestow upon you.–
Have I been deceived? Have I built my structure
of hopes on the sand? Or is there a ray of affection,
feeble though it be, emanating from the heart of my
cousin Minnie which seeks to incorporate itself n
the brilliant flame which now burns so intensely on
the altar of my own? Let me entreat you to relieve
my suspense. Assure me that I love not in vain
and if you cannot now grant me supreme control
over your affections, at least, inspire me with the
hope that by unwavering constancy, and persevering
faith, I may at some future time obtain an indisputed
right to that love which I now so ardently long to
possess.–I shall now leave this question of vital
interest to me, to you. Let me in conclusion ask
you to deliberate seriously on the matter, and to
grant me a reply as soon as possible–I shall
in the meantime be harassed by great anxiety and
suspense.–
Believe me to be yours devotedly
Porte
William McCauley, a teacher at Roanoke College and a soldier in the Dixie Grays, Co. E, 42nd Virginia, and Margaret Jane Shirey addressed each others by the nicknames “Porte” and “Shirey”
Minnie’s reply will be posted on July the 18th
MSS 14953
