...It has been part of our duties to travle about from place to place to have the darkies sign the contract and also to oversee the plantations We have a soldier at each plantation as safeguard & overseer. I do not believe there would more than one out of ten work if they were not compelled to by the soldiers

 

Hawkinsville is a small village of about 1200 inhabitants mostly negroes a miserable, dilapidated, filthy place very little doing and were it not for the troops there would be nothing done atall. Everybody about here has as much as they can do to get enough to eat, and to wear, not very particular about quality or color, but just enough to meet the demands of decency the young darkies are almost naked many of them 12 or 14 years old with nothing on but a coarse cotton shirt. In fact this is the most God forsaken country I ever saw. Ignorance is bliss seems to be the motto here and / it is folley to be wise here.

 

The weather has been very hot and dry the most the time until about 1^st Sept now we have one terible thunder shower every 24 hours usually in the afternoon and such thunder & lightning I never saw or heard before. and such terible floods of water as pour down the whole surface of the ground is flooded with water but it soon disappears in the sandy soil. James Morrow is with me in Hospital department. he is well and just as faithful & honest as ever. he sends his respects to you and says he would be glad to have you write to him. George & Nat Cook and John Patterson are here and well Very little sickness. no deaths in the Regt since last winter. we number present and absent 340. Present 260. be sure and write to me. direct H. O. Failing Hosp Steward 160^th N.Y. Vols. Hawkinsville G^a via Savannah 3^d Brig. 1^st div Army of Georgia

 

Give my love to all my friends My respects to your wife & children

                                                                       

Ever Your Friend H. O. Failing

H.S. 160^th N.Y.Vols

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