Philadelphia, April, 62.
My dear Georgy: I feel a great interest in dear Eliza and yourself, and also in your dear mother, and all the family, knowing how anxious you must all be about Joe. I do wish you could get to Fortress Monroe, or, as you say, to the Hygiea Hotel. . . . We had a letter this morning from Lenox, dated from on board the steamer Welden, which Dr. Smith has chartered to fit up as a hospital ship for the Pennsylvania wounded. You know we have 50,000 at Yorktown, at least so say the papers.
Lenox seems much pleased that they have the steamer, as it makes them so independent, and enables them to go where they may be most needed, without troubling any one. Dr. Smith’s plan is to have a building on shore for a hospital, and the steamer can convey the wounded to it. Some of the doctors are to attend to their removal from the field, while some are to take charge of them on the steamer, and the remainder to receive them at the hospital. . . . Lenox was just going off to Cheesman’s landing. He is very much interested in all he sees; has visited the Monitor and been all over it, and also he had been over the fortress and visited several camps.
It is a great trial to part with him, but he has wanted so long to do what he could for the cause that it is a great gratification that he can go now without interfering with his duty to his father. The lectures are over, and he can spare him better than he could before, though even now Lenox is a great loss to his father… .
My love to your dear mother and Hatty, and say I am still looking for their promised visit, and shall count on their coming here on their way home. We have Lottie and baby here now, for a little visit, but I have plenty of room for all.