You are an upper class woman from Virginia, living in the height of luxury for an American at the time. But not all is well. War has broken out against Englang and your husband has ridden on his status in regional politics to be chosen as a general. He has left you to travel far across the region in order to be present and available for the oncoming military campaign. You worry constantly for his well being, when suddenly, a letter arrives.
Your husband had promised to return to you in the fall,but still the campaign trudges on. No one expected the war to go on for so long. "Dear [wife], I should enjoy more real happiness and felicity in one month with you at home , than I have the most distant prospect of reaping abroad." “If it should be your desire to remove to Alexandria (as you once mentioned upon an occasion of this sort) I am quite pleased that you should put it into practive, & Lund Washington may be directed, by you, to build a Kitchen and other Houses there proper for your reception - if on the other hand you should rather Incline to spend a good part of your time among your Friends below, I wish you to do so. - In short, my earnest, & ardent desire is, that you would pursue any Plan that is most likely to produce content, and a tolerable degree of Tranquility as it must add greatly to my uneasy feelings to hear that you are dissatisfied, and complaining at what I really could not avoid.”