Bayou Boueff LA March 28^th 1863

 

            Dear Wife       I will again (after a lapse of 8 days since my last letter) try to write you a few lines in answer to your letters of the 6^th and 8^th of this month

 

            I recd your letter that you wrote the 8^th last Sunday and the one that you wrote the 6^th I recd last night so you see that it is not always the first letters written that gets here first but I am glad to get them although they are delayed in coming to me I am still in good health I think better than I have been since I left New York although I have to work pretty hard yet I think it is better for me than to stay in camp and do nothing I think that that was what made me sick before a laying around and not doing anything

 

            You will see by the date of this letter or rather from the place where it is dated / that we have again mooved our camp we were camped at Brashear City up to friday the 20^th the day that I wrote my last letter that morning we received orders to pack our hospital stores &c and be ready to march in case of necesity we went to work after breakfast to packing up not knowing whether we should moove or where we should go if we did moove or what the object of mooving was whether we were a going to fight or retreat but about 7 Oclock at night we were ordered to get our sick men to the depot as soon as possible as we were a going back toward New Orleans it was thought by our General (and he probably had good reasons for thinking so) that the Rebels were about to get in our rear and burn the rail road bridge that crosses the river at this place the bridge is about a half mile long and / then attack us with a large force and if they could not whip us to surround us and starve us out as when the bridge was gone we could not get any provisions from the city and there was not any to be got where we were only as we brought it from New Orleans so we retreated 7 miles to the place where we now are the day before we left Brashear the General sent a flag of truce up to the rebels and told them that if they did not leave the place where they were within 24 hours that he should shell them out and burn the town So when at night they heard our wagons taking our stuff to the depot they thought that we were a getting reinforcements and they pulled up camp and run 22 miles one way while we were going 7 the other so that instead of a fight both armies / retreated at the same time but the next day after we got here the Rebels sent a party of men down for the purpose of burning the bridge but we were in ahead of them and that spoiled their fun then

 

            We have kept some men at Brashear City ever since as a guard and for to watch the movements of the Rebels. last night the Rebels fired across the bay there and killed three of our Cavalry men and to night we have had bad news or rather no news at all so it is about as bad as bad news this morning two of our gun boats went up there to reconoitre one of them had on board one company of our Regiment and the other had on a company from the 75 Regiment this afternoon we heard heavy firing up in that direction but did not know what was going on as the cars did not get in as usual and did not come until after dark when they finally arrived and brought the word that our gun boats had gone up the river early in the day and the firing that was heard was up there but the boats had not yet got back nor no news from them and they think have either been captured or sunk if captured both companies are probably prisoners and if sunk perhaps all drowned but we hope for better news by morning or to morrow at the fartherest. we expect that there will be some fighting around here before a great while perhaps not right here but not many miles off for we are a getting reinforcements and so are the Rebels the battery that James & Henry Vosburgh are in are camped within a few rods of the hospital and I see them nearly every day they are both well and healthy

 

            Our present camp is located on the bank of a river called Bayou Boueff pronounced Byou Buff it is not near / so pleasant a place as our camp that we left last week nor is the water near as good our hospital is about ¾ of a mile from the regiment so it makes it very inconvenient it is so far to go the regiment is camped in an old sugar cane field and we have had so much rain within a few days that the mud is nearly shoe deep it makes it very unpleasant and disagreeable when we left our other camp we sent 23 of our sick to the general hospital at New Orleans they were the ones that were the sickest there is there now about 40 of our regiment sick only one from our company he is a boy from the north part of the town we have not near so many sick in the hospital now as there was. we have only about 30 men in all and two weeks ago we had near 70

 

            You wanted to know how often the mail came in here we get it about once a week when we are not a mooving it goes out / from New Orleans every Sunday and Wednesday Generally we get our letters the next day after they get to New Orleans you said that you often wished that you was here but as bad as I want to see you I am glad that you are not here while the present state of things exist nor would I have you come on any account it is bad enough for men to say nothing about a womans being here French got the letter yesterday that had his wifes likeness in he was so proud of that he had to bring it here and show it to me

 

            I sent Reynolds an other paper a short time since I got a Rural from him last night and four papers from you all at one time Tell Mr Reynolds that I am very much obliged to him for that Rural for it was a very aceptable present the first I have seen here

 

            Tell lilly that I feel proud of her that she is so good a girl and tries learn so fast give her this shin plaster / that I send in this letter tell her pa will send her a paper as soon as he can get a nice one to send you may tell Frank that I shall not send him anything more until he learns to be a good boy and does not tell any more such stories for it is very wicked and I am sorry that he does it and you tell Lilly that she shall not be abused when I come home and not only her but Mrs Boyall also if my children cannot be in my own house without being abused by her that she had better pick up her duds and leave and the sooner the better it will suit me for I did not let her come there to abuse my children

 

I am very glad that you have got that certifficate that I sent you when I got your letter saying that you had not got I felt bad for I thought that you must need it and I sat down and wrote you a letter and put two dollars in it hoping that you would get that and the certifficate to. I mailed to you yesterday a paper and I put in it a cuting of a running rose and also a rose that grew on it you must put the piece of rose bush in the ground and see if it will grow I shall send any such thing to you and Reynolds that I can get to send you the flowers of all kinds is out in full bloom here now But I must stop for it is after two oclock and I want to go to bed

 

yours as ever   L. V. Tucker /

 

I must write a few words about Wesley Drake he is well as fat as ever he uses me as though we were brothers he acts toward me as much different here than what he at home as though he was not the same person at all he got a box of provisions &c from home about two or three weeks ago he divides with me every time that he eats any of it and will make me take it when you write to me again write a few words to him it will please him and he has been very kind to me he and my self have charge of all of the sick now that are in the hospital. I think I have been blessed in finding friends whether I am deserving or not I do not think that I have an enemy in our reg and no one that seems to have anything against me unless it is failing he acts as if he thought that I was getting more favours than he is but I do not try / make any more of myself than I am and I find that I make friends by it

 

            Captain Potter will probably start for home on the same boat that brings this letter as he has got his discharge I believe the boys are all seemingly glad of it for he is not much thought of he has played up sick for the last two months but he looks as healthy as any man here is and has been to New Orleans for some four weeks past

 

            You say that I must keep up good courage I do not now nor have not for one minute doubted but that I am coming home again it seems as if I almost knew it to be a sure thing yet it is not impossible that I may be disappointed but I trust in God that I shall come

 

yors &c

L. V. Tucker

 

[upside down]

 

tell The Horton that his letter made Mr Failing sick

 

[first sheet top inner margin upside down]

 

there is a white lilly grows here that is the prettiest white lilly that I ever saw I wish that I could get a root home and have it live if I could I would not take ten dollars for it but I will write again soon write often

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