in goodness and knowledge as well as in stature; but how I shall
suffer on my return if the reverse has occurred. You enter into all
my thoughts, into all my prayers, and on you in part will depend
whether I shall be happy or miserable, as you know how much I love
you.

Ten years later, when the son had become a lieutenant in the Army, he
admonishes him:

I hope you will always be distinguished for your avoidance of the
universal bane whisky and every immorality. Nor need you fear to be
ruled out of the society that indulges in it, for you will acquire
their esteem and respect, as all venerate, if they do not practice,
virtue. I hope you will make many friends, as you will be thrown
with those who deserve this feeling. But indiscriminate intimacies
you will find annoying and entangling, and they can be avoided by
politeness and civility. When I think of your youth, impulsiveness,
and many temptations, your distance from me, and the ease (and even
innocence) with which you might commence an erroneous course, my
heart quails within me and my whole frame and being tremble at the
possible results. May Almighty God have you in His holy keeping. To
His merciful providence I commit you, and I will rely upon Him and
the efficacy of the prayers that will be daily and hourly offered
up by those who love you.

A year or two later, on New Year's Day, 1859, he writes:

I always thought there was stuff in you for a good soldier and I
trust you will prove it. I can not express the gratification I
felt, in meeting Col. May in New York, at the encomium he passed