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Davidson College
Jan 11th 1861
Dear Joe,
Again we must converse with paper and ink for our medium. Your favor of last week came to hand Saturday. You still complain of the mud – are you not getting used to it? I am. As ti sticking fast in it, as you say you did – why didn’t you not follow the example which I set and “walk the fence.”
Well, Joe, let me be an egotist for a while, and talk of myself. I am comfortably located in old Danville –enjoying good health and
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reasonable spirits– and doing business according to the old programme (seven recitations per week). I like my nest well. If there is anything to be gained by quiet and silence I am certainly fortunate. Nothing to disturb by cogitations. I am just recovering from a violent attack of the blues, brought on by various conspiring causes, more easily imagined than detailed. You ought to see Dick performing experiments! The way he moves about among the apparatus is curious. I have to find out the uses of most of the darned things as I go along. Joe, in consenting to fill this department
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I am guilty of almost unpardonable presumption.
Well Joe, Uncle J__ and family are no longer citizens of Davidson College. They went off on Tuesday. It does not look natural without them here. Dr. Lacy is packing up with all haste. He will soon be gone. And now for the Jimmy part. Dr. McLean is gone–and not gone alone. He left here on Tuesday morning with the widow in tow. He played the gossips a complete dodge. He made no hesitation in telling anyone that he was going away to S.C. but no one thought of him taking the widow with him. I found it out accidentally and about three or four others
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knew it. Hurra for the Dr. I say. Some men are providing themselves with a weapon to go to S. C.; others (the unionists) can do nothing but weep on for S. C.; but Dr. McLean took his net and went to S.C. to catch a wee pawn. He is the man to combine all the issues. He will catch his wee pawn, and the presently he will have to go to a peach tree and get another weapon with which to give his wee pawn cause to weep on. Again I say, Hurra for Dr. McLean and the widow!!
The students very generally returned and some came back that I did not expect to see. John Elms who as been in
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(Shaw is back again)
in Columbia for some time is here again. Gibbs started to Columbia a few days ago, and he is back again. I wonder if there is anything in the climate of the lower part of S. C. unfavorable to the disease known as white liver? I see some men flying from that region with various excuses and they all look as if some such disease had suddenly taken hold of them.
Joe, if reports be true the ball is in motion – the war is opened. News came here yesterday that a vessel in trying to reach fort Sumter was sunk by fort Moultre. We will soon see who is
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ready to maintain the cause of theSouth. White livers and tories will soon by unmasked. Those who are believers in the omnipotence of the union and the constitution per se will have to take a stand pro or con. We will then know whom to depend on, for this strife will bring out every man in this true colors. I expect to be called on to find the hearts of some men about here with the microscope. The old schoolmen argued about the number of angels that could stand together on the point of a cambric needle, but if it had been craven heart instead of point of a cambric needle, the
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contest would have been soon ended.
Joe, I have made one step in that affair de coeur. Upon consideration I changed my tactics and instead of besieging the landlady, I directed my attack up on the Greek – even called James Mallory. The coast is perfectly clear in that quarter.
Tell Mollie that I accept her “howdy” with thanks, and send howdy in return.
Give my regards to all in Steel Creek that kindly remember yours in the lands of F&F
Wm. N. Dickey
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Original
From: DC0090s, Joseph Thompson, 1834-1862 (1860) Papers, 1859-1861. (View Finding Aid)
Cite as:
Thompson, Joseph. Letter to Joe. 11 January 1861. Joseph Thompson Letters. Davidson College Archives, Davidson College, NC. Available: https://davidsonarchivesandspecialcollections.org/archives/digital-collections/joseph-thompson-letter-january-1861-transcript/.
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