Marine Hospital New Orleans La

Nov 25^th 1863

 

Dear Wife

                        although I mailed one letter to you this morning yet I will write you another as I have got two letters from you since I took that one to the office it was but a short one but it had that ring in, that you wanted it may be that this letter will go by the same mail with that. I am feeling much better this afternoon than I have felt for several days and the getting of your letters has livened me up a considerable so I thought I would commence answering yours right away. yet I may not finish it to day            

 

I was glad the hear that you was well and that Lilly was getting better I hope that it may be permanent and lasting be carefull of her health even if she does not go to school any this winter. I think by your letter that your visit to Seneca has been the means of doing you a goodeal of good I am glad that you went and I think that if you would go from home more than you do that it would be better for you I want you to go as often as you possibly can

 

            You say that Mr Reynolds gets all of the things that you need only your groceries & cloths when he does this work for you I want you to pay him for it if he will take it has he got that last $20. that to him I sent him 20 and you the same only in two two ten dollar bills one at a time I hope that you will get them all right and in time before you need it I sent him the 20 the next day after I was paid and yours soon after 

 

            You speak about Aunt Sallys being so lonesome and ask if I would not like to go with you to see her I would like to first rate but as I can not go with you you must go for you and me both. go as often as you can and see her it will seem almost as if I was there with you when you write to me about your visit                    

 

You said that you have had to pay 25 cents a pound for butter well that is very dear and I hope that it will not be so very long but I have paid here 60 cts a pound but only for one pound 5 cents a quart is high for milk but I have paid 10 cents a quart when I was with the regiment the last time for enough to make a breakfast for 15 sick men and gave it to them for nothing for there was nothing at the hospital for them to eat and I would not see them starve if others would. It cost me then in two weeks $10. to live and what I gave the sick men for the doctor that was with the regiment would not buy anything only for himself and the boys was out of money and could not buy for them selves and we had nothing from the commissary only hard crackers as the regiment had gone and left us with out any rations at all. that was pretty hard times for sick men that could not help them selves. I spoke of hard crackers the next time that I send any thing home I am going to send you some hard tack as we call them then you see the kind of bread that a soldier has to live on when he is marching and fighting but it is the only kind of bread that they can carry with them on a march although it is very hard yet it is bread and ready for eating at any time and will sustain life a long time 

 

            You say that the box had come all right I am glad of that and glad to that the things are such as you can use and not some useless trash good for nothing. you can now see what we have here to keep the mosquetoes from eating us up nights for they are like a swarm of bees here nights yet. Did you have to pay any more on it only from the depot home I presume that the blanket will come good this winter it had never been used only a few nights by me I took new out of the bale as soon as it was opened I have another one a grey one and new I wish you had that to for I do not need it as long as I am in the hospital and when I go to the regiment I can get another the mosqitoe bar may not be of much use to you but it did not cost me any thing only the sending home and that is the way with the most of the other things                   

 

I think that I shall send you an other after I am paid again and will try to send such things as you want. how do you like my mettal cup that was in the box                 

 

You say that you expect to have another Doctor in town when Wes gets home that he is going to study and practice medicine I think that he had better study common sense awhile first and learn to be less of a baby and more of a man. with regard to his having his discharge offered him it is false for he jumped at the first chance that he got and as for his having promised to stay with the boys and all that I can tell you how much he thought of them. he was in a ward on the ground floor and Darius Lake George Cook & Seph Cookingham were sick in the ward right over his head and he never went to see them at all after he got his discharg and / he was there more than a week after he got his papers so you can see what he thought of the boys

 

 

            Now in regard to John Vandusen the best that I can call him is a poor drunkard and I can prove it when he was at Brashear I to see him on business and I found him perfectly dead drunk so that he did not know any more than a hog he was so one third of the time and I could bring a charge against him and one that I can sustain to that would send him to Ship Island for the ballance of his three years if I was a mind to if he had not been so drunk he might have saved some of the regimental baggage instead of creeping off and hiding until the fight was over with and when he was parolled and came down to the city tell what wonders he had done and because he had been drunk so much he went to the hospital and staid a few days and then tried to get discharged because the whiskey had bloated him up so but as soon as he could not get any whiskey his bloat began to go away and he had to go back to duty it makes me so disgusted to think any one will lie so and get others to post it around for them

 

            But I will close this and write again in a few days for I begin to feel more like writing

 

            when you direct your letters leave of the Co & Regiment and send them right to the hospital and I will get them sooner

 

Write soon and often To        L. V. Tucker

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