8 Oclock Your letter has

just arrived and been read

L.C.C.

 

Camp Sedgewick                   

Near Brandy Station Va

Jan 31. 1864.

                       

Dear Sister.

              I am not on picket this week when I commence a letter to you but it came so near it that there was not much to brag of, only one man between me and the picket line, but a miss you know is as good as a mile.

 

            Our warm pleasant weather came to a termination last Friday night. it had been uncomfortably warm for nearly two weeks, the last rain having come two weeks ago next Monday. Well! Friday night there was a change for a little cooler weather the wind got around into the N.E. and has been cloudy and misty / up to this time with a little rain last night. It seems like a planting time storm. Our winter accommodations are still being increased. I wrote in my last of the streets and side walks that were being improved, and the guard house that was being built. well they are making a plank walk from the company officers quarters to the Majors Hd. Qrs. ditching around the camp and clearing up a swamp of briars higher than your head, making a dungeon to put men in that dont "have" as Jed used to say, and they are tearing up things generally all around.

 

It wont do for a man now to squat down anywhere within two miles of camp for the purpose of making a deposit, for if he is discovered "wo be unto him". there are places prepared for such deposits, and several have already suffered the extreme penalty of the law for disregarding the powers that be. / A man was detected a few days ago in the act and he was accordingly ordered to take a spade proceed at once to the place, under guard, take up the sum and substance of the matter and with it on his shoulder walk back and forth the length of the regiment all day. another case happened night before last. this time the prisoner was provided with a cigar box in which to place the offensive article and with a cord by which it was attached to his neck he was ordered to walk all night with it dangling under his nose. Regulations are getting pretty severe but hard cases need severe remedies you know last Friday it was generally understood that a man was to be hung at the Station for entering our lines as a spy. there was considerable curiosity to see the act performed and by noon there was hardly a man left in camp. that morning a detail of forty men from this regiment was ordered to clean up and put in order the grounds around the / Generals Hd. quarters. they proceeded to the place and reported for duty and for an hour or two kinder brushed up the dirt &c. but their minds were not with their work and they soon began to think they would take a French furlough for themselves and leave. so two or three together at a time sloped until there was hardly any one left at all. at night when they had all got back an order came for all of them to walk all night with a log on their shoulders the next morning they got their breakfasts they went and done the duty assigned them for the day before. Jenckes is right down us. I guess the men see now that Rogers was not the worst man that ever was.

 

Fourteen mounted rebels came to our picket line this week and surrendered themselves Our reenlisted men are expecting to go home in the course of this week I am not one of them

 

Your last Sundays letter has not arrived I shall expect an account of your exhibition when it does come I shall expect it to night

                                                                                   

Lowell C Cook.

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