To Mary Milroy from RH Milroy Feb 10 1863

              Headquarters Milroy’s Division 
                      Winchester, Va. Feb. 10th, 1863 
My Dear Mary, 
	I wrote you some ten days or two  
weeks ago & am disappointed about not getting an  
answer, as I intimated something about you & the  
children coming out here to see me, & I was anxious  
to hear what you thought of it & whether you had det- 
ermined to come or not.  I have not yet recd. an answer to  
that letter & fear it has miscarried.  Capt. McDonald my comm- 
issary started home to day on a short visit & will return with you  
& Mrs. Demott if either or both wishes to come.  You could not come with  
a kinder or a more gentlemanly fellow than him.  He will send  
you word or come to see you.  The PayMaster has not  
come yet though daily expected.  I recd. a telegram from  
my good friend Colfax two days ago congratulating  
me on my being nominated by the Pres. to the  
Senate as Maj. Genl.  This promotion was justly  
due me five months ago, & the Pres. & Sec. of War  
were then in favor of giving it to me, but it has been  
baffled & ripped back by the vindictive malice &  
little souled jealousy of Halleck, & it has now been  
so long & so unjustly withheld from me, & so many  
others, with little or no merit, have been promoted over  
me that I attach no honor to it, & look upon it as  
valueless, & were it not that it unshackles me &  
gives me a wider field of action, I would reject it with scorn.