If he were alive he would certainly write, and there was Confederate communication between Eastern Tennessee and Northern Virginia.
It was thus with a sinking heart that he watched the diminishing heap.
Many of the disappointed ones had already gone away, hopeless, and Harry felt like following them, but the major picked up a thick letter in a coarse brown envelope and called: "Lieutenant Henry Kenton, staff of Lieutenant-General Thomas Jonathan Jackson." Harry sprang forward and seized his letter.

Then he found a place behind a big tree, where St.Clair, Langdon and Dalton were reading theirs, and opened it.

He had already seen that the address was in his father's handwriting and he believed that he was alive.

The letter must have been written after the battle of Stone River or it would have arrived earlier.

He took a hurried glance at the date and saw that it was near the close of January, at least three weeks after the battle.
Then all apprehension was gone.
It was a long letter, dated from headquarters near Chattanooga, Tennessee.