General Hospital        

Brashear City L.A. April 11^th/63

 

            Dear Sister                  your letter of March 25^th I recd yesterday and very glad was I to get it for it was the first that I had heard from you direct since I saw you last fall when you was at my house

 

            Your letter found me in the general hospital at Brashear City not as a patient and sick but as one of the nurses and well as I have been in three years I have been sick since I came South but nothing very serious as I had to keep my bed only four days I had the remittent fever but not as some have had it down here so bad that it has been five or six weeks before they could get out around but I had a very light attack of it I have been at work in the hospital of the Regiment ever since I was sick until last Sunday when the Surgeon was chosen as Superintendant of the General hospital here and he took me with / him the assistant Surgeon of our Regiment wanted me to stay with him but the first Surgeon would not let me I think that I have many friends here in our regiment and but very few enemies for I try to be accomodating to all and I find that it is to my interest to do so and also to my benefit. The general health of our Regt since we came South has been rather bad as we have a very large sick list it has been up to 150 sick at one time but now it is not so large we have only about thirty in the hospital and a few in camp that are able to take care of them selves but not able to do duty we have lost about 30 by disease and some 8 or 9 killed in battle so that in all there has been about 40 deaths in our regiment since the first of Jan. the sick in the hospital are well taken care of much better than I thought they could be before I came in here to work I have noticed one thing here and that is that a man that is / sick and gets discouraged and homesick is very sure to die, while on the other hand a man that keeps his spirits up and is as cheerful as the circumstances will admit of is quite sure to recover and get well I never thought until I saw it here that the mind had so much influence over the body but it is so

 

            Well we have been down here in Dixie now some three months and in that time we have had one fight and to day another has been going on a few miles above us as we could hear the frequent reports of heavy guns. for the last two weeks an expidition has been fitting out here for to go up the river and have a fight with the rebels if they would stand their ground and not run as they have quite a large force about eight or ten miles from here so day before yesterday we began to get reinforcements and you may judge of number of men we have for your self they commenced marching by here before daylight / and it was a constant string of men almost until night besides that there was nearly a hundred cannon and then there was some three or four very long trains of cars came in loaded with troops out side and in and yesterday there was more came so that there is some 40,000 men now within a few miles of us the advance probably some 15 miles from here while the rear has but just commenced their march our Regiment was the second regiment and in the Second Brigade but General Banks took the 160^th (our Reg) as a reserve they stand a chance of not being in the fight unless necessity compels them to be. the probability is that they will unless they get whipped out march on to Vicksburgh before they stop. it is now one oclock in the morning and I have just heard the firing of a cannon up in the direction of our army they must be a fighting some by starlight

 

            You wanted to know how I liked camp life I hardly know what to say for I have seen so little of real active camp life that I can hardly tell but it is not very pleasant to say the least and if I did not think it my duty to do what I could

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