Marine Hospital New Orleans L'a. Jan 4^th 1864

 

            Dear Wife

                        As it is very rainy and I kind of lonesome day I will commence another letter to you and write it as I have anything to write between this and the time that the mail leaves for the North from here, but I do not know when that will be for the boat was to leave last Saturday but has not yet got here from New York neither has the one that is advertised to leave here next Saturday, but I will have it ready when it does go. I do not know as I have anything very new or interesting but such as I have I will write whether it is good or not             

 

Well I will tell you of a ride that I had yesterday After we got through dinner Mr White and I went out and hitched up the horse and started out. we took a new route from what we had ever been before and we found many things that was interesting and new to us. The nicest buildings that I have seen yet in this state were situated on that street there was some fine residences with front yards filled with flowers and shrubery and orrange trees that hung full of large nice orranges. they looked very tempting and nice as though they would eat good. I have seen orranges here that was larger than a pint bowl. After riding around and through the city for about an hour we struck off into the country some three or four miles in a direction that we had never been before and there we found nice situations and yards the same as in the city only larger we went past a vegetable garden that looked as if winter had forgotten to come, turnips, cabbage, onions, beets and all kinds of garden vegetables looked as green as though it was in the summer. We came to a little cluster of buildings perhaps a dozen in all on a bayou called St John only one of them was any more than very common that was a nice dwelling house and a very pretty yard in front. Here we crossed the bayou and the first building that we came to was a dance and coffee house to gether. they had a band of music a / playing all of the time (especially on Sunday) The character of the house you can judge of for your self with out my saying anything more about than that it was a dance House. It needs no further comment. We stoped our horse in the road in front of the building and heard them play two tunes and then left them alone in their crimes and Sabbath breaking

 

            But we spent an hour very pleasantly in going through the Catholic Cemetry and yet we did not have time visit only a part of it. There is not a grave in the whole cemetry but all are put in tombs built of masonry above ground. the tombs will hold from one to nine, and as fast as the seperate places are occupied there is a marble front put in with the inscription on and then it is cemented tight so that no air can get in or out the fronts all have a cross engraved on them and the inscription is made in french. Some of the tombs are very handsome and beautifully ornamented, and then the friends will make wreaths of black and white beads strung on wire, most all of them with the cross in the centre and then different kinds of flowers worked around it and generally the name around the edge or else some motto and take them all to gether they are very nice. I would like to get one and send you but that would be out of the question

 

            The time I was there was the only time that I have wished for you here, just to take a stroll through the different cemetrys, not but what I would like well enough to see you and be with you, but yet any where north not here among the heathen of the South. A good many of the tombs are built of white marble in the style of a house about 12 or 14 feet high 10 long and 8 wide finished up in very nice style. The Masonic Tomb will hold 20 and is got very neat, also the tomb of the Sisters of charity. But the tombs for the poorer class is built of brick and extends clear around the yard 4 or five deep /

 

Jan 6^th              I did not finish my letter the day that I commenced writing but will add a little to it to day

 

            Since I commenced this I recd a letter from you that was written Nov 3^d It came from the regiment and was one that you put in somebody elses letter they got it and and opened it and carried until it was nearly worn out when it was handed to an Irishman in C^o E and he put an envelope on it and sent it to me or els I should not have got it at all you never spoke of sending a letter in that way nor whose letter you sent it in, but whoever it went to they did not do as they would like to be done by but I have got it at last. The weather here this week has been very unpleasant it has rained nearly all of the week so far and to day we have a regular northern storm raining all of the time and freezing so that the ground is a glare of ice it is the hardest to keep warm to day of any day this winter. But since I have commenced writing to day I have got two letters from you one mailed the 22^d and the other the 24^th of Dec. I was very glad to get them for it is a dreary day and something was needed to help pass away time and they are the best kind of company for a stormy day to drive away the blues. I got one the same time from Wes. Drake. So you see I have some writing to do to answer them all in time for Saturdays mail but if I do not have time I shall not answer Wes this week.                      

 

Well the first that I shall answer in your letters is the charge that you made against me for not telling the truth you do not believe me when I tell you how I am and then right of ask me to tell you how I am every time I write. what good will it do for me to tell you anything about it if you do not believe me when I do tell you. I cannot see as it would help me any to lie to you about it whether you believe me or not but when I have said anything about my health I have tried to tell / you the truth but it seems all the same truth or not

 

Since I have been here in charge of this ward at no time have I given it up but have managed to take the charge of it if I did not do the work. I would sit up long enough every day to do my writing and the orders I could give lying in bed and at present I am as well as I have been since I have been here excepting a bad cold and some pain in my head again.

 

            You said that you had got your ring all right and that Mr Reynolds had got his to. When I sent his I did not know but that he would take it as an imposition but from what you said I hope that he has not for I did not mean it as such. how did he take the sending him of my photograph did he think that I was over doing the matter or was he pleased with it.

 

            You said that you wished that I had kept my cap off when I had my photograph taken. Well I have the start of you there I did not have my cap on at all when it was taken for I wore a hat down with me and when the picture was taken I had on a borrowed cap. One reason that made me look so poor was because my coat was so large and being so loose on me I got when I was more fleshy and it was large for me then but larger when I was poorer. If I could find a place where I could get it done reasonable I would get another and a larger one but I cannot pay what they ask me here for

 

            Your speaking of the biscuit almost makes me hungry although I have had my dinner yet if I had a good biscuit I guess that I should not throw it away, do you.

 

You urge me in every letter to come home perhaps you think that I can come by simply asking to do so but you do not know much about the matter although it all lies with the doctor yet a discharge has to go through some five or six different hands before it is filled out and ready. And then again I have not asked for a discharge for the reason that instead of dischargeing men now they put them in what is called the Invalid Corps and are sent of to do garison duty if they do as has been told me that they are going to do that is send each man that is in that corps to their native state then I shall go in for it but if I have to go some where else I had rather stay where I be until I can get discharged or well

 

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I shall commence this letter with no 1 as the first this year

 

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I was in hopes that I should have my pay so that I could send it in this letter but have not yet got and it is said that we will not get paid before about the 20^th of this month but as soon as I get I will send by the first mail after I get it let me know if you cannot get along and I will try and borrow some and send you

 

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But I guess that I have got this sheet full enough so I will finish up on the first page where I began              

 

L. V. Tucker

            write often

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