The "letter full of feeling" to which Mr. Gladstone refers was an account sent to Mr. Field by his daughter Alice of a visit to the headquarters of the Army of the Potomac. On account of this reference, and also for its interest as a contemporaneous sketch of the war time by a non-combatant, it is here inserted: "WASHINGTON, D. C., _February 25, 1864_. "_My dear Mother_,--Since I last wrote I have been to the army front, passing on the way many of the battle-fields whose names bring up sad memories, and finally living for two nights and much of three days within view of the enemy's signals, and in the midst of our own encampments.... Early on Monday morning we found ourselves in the government train on the way to Brandeth Station. This is a five hours' journey from Washington, but the time could not have dragged with any one interested in the history of our country. We saw the battle-ground of Manasses; we crossed the Bull Run stream and the fields made memorable by Pope's disastrous campaign. Indeed, along the long line of the railway runs a battle-field--the "race-course," as an officer told me it was called, so often have our troops and the enemy's pursued each other there. Everywhere one sees the evidences of war; the whole country is desolated, and the earth ploughed by the tread of armies; broken earthworks border the brows of the hills, and wherever a camp is seen around it is a stockade or abatis to protect it from Mosby's guerillas, who infest this region. "As we were whirled past these scenes, I listened to the talk of the officers about me, and expressions such as these made the story doubly real: "It was there the cavalry was attacked"; "The bridge we are now crossing was contested all day in the action of the other day"; "We held those hills where that body of artillery is now moving." So those five hours hurried away, and we did not wake up to the present until we reached Brandeth Station. Here stood lines of ambulances to receive the army's guests, and soon we were placed in an ambulance and jolted over corduroy roads to General ---- 's tent. After an hour's jolting we reached our first destination. The general's tent was one of a large encampment on a hill which commands a view of our fortifications all about the country and those of the rebels across the river, only four or five miles away. "General ----, commander of the Third Brigade, Third Division, Second Corps, received us very courteously, and with him and three of the officers of his staff we lunched in the tent. This tent is charming. At one end blazes in a huge fireplace--open, of course--a bright wood fire: in the centre stands a table, over which hangs a chandelier holding three candles; on one side is the bed; and all about are army chairs.