
          New York Aug 1 1848


 My Dear Sir,


 I have but just returned from a trip
 to the west & find awaiting me your brief but kind
 note of Aug 10th. I also recieved at Fort Hamilton the
 very day I left the city, your first letter which seems
 to have travelled the round about of Washington
 so that it was more than a week before it
 reached my hands & then at such a moment that
 ’twas impossible to answer it.


 I sincerely regret the miscarriage of the letters
 sent to Mexico though they but shared a common
 fate with nearly two-thirds of letters sent to the army;
 because the mails were either badly arranged on
 that they were captured by the Mexicans; out of
 more than 200 that I wrote home; they
 received not more than twenty, and I can assure
 you that it was no great inducement to write letter
 after letter & not get the slightest acknowledgement
 of them. Throughout the Compaign Botany
 had but little attention paid to it excepting as
 now & then an opportunity occurred at a camp
 of two or three days and even than ’twas dangerous
 to venture more than six hundred yards beyond
 the picket guard lest you should be lassoed
 and killed; indeed we lost many a man
 within a less distance. Even whilst stationed in cities
 Our orders were strict never to go unarmed so that
 with arms & escorts one could collect but little than
 wayside plants after all. Whilst Vera Cruz was
 besieged I was almost every day detailed to 
 & with some scouting party into the interior

        