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L.M. In Front of Atlanta, July 29, 1864. This war-time plays sad havoc with opportunities for letter-writing. My note to your sister was written on the 26th. it is now the 29th, and this is the first minute of leisure that I have had since then. We are still in the trenches, still narrowing and tightening around the fated city the lines of circumvallation fighting by piecemeal, here and there, but making, I trust, the final result sure. [vertical text begin] omit all but the last two paragraphs. [vertical text end] I know what you mean, dear friend, and it will be enough of joy, and bring enough of blessed recompense, that you give me leave to walk hand in hand with you accomplishing the uses and delights of this spiritual friendship born out of worthy recognition of the worthy soul. How much I thank you for your solicitude respecting my welfare in those days of sickness when I was nigh unto death, and for your anxiety about my safety in these hours when the air is all alive with the blazing wrath of battle. It comforts me, exceedingly, this abiding sense of abiding fellowship, this knowledge of your faith and trust that I shall not stave nor mar the grandeur and justice of the Cause in which I try to do my duty. Kinships born of the recognition of the adaptive uses of sex in the soul must I think, when understood reverenly, be productive of blessed goods. It is this inborn and intuitive assurance of spiritual consanguinity between us - as also between your sister and myself, which has so held me and wrought good upon me. I do not need to be told that you are anxious when I am sick or in danger,