Baltimore Md.            

Aug 29 1865

                       

My Dear Sister.

                                                How long is it since you received a letter from me. Is it a right smart while? I reckon it is indeed. It is two weeks yesterday since your letter containing five dollars was received, and I am just now answering it. You have likely heard from me about as often as once a week during the time so that you may know I am all right as yet, in the town of Baltimore

 

            Baltimore is not a bad town to campaign it in, much better on an average than soldiers generally are provided with. if you will cast your mind back on the three last / campaigns of the army of the Potomac I think you will agree with me in agreeing that this is the most agreeable of the three.

 

Not but what we enjoyed ourselves wherever our fortunes led us. put soldiers anywhere if they have enough to eat and drink and clothes to keep them warm they will be happy whether fighting, marching, or lying idle in camp in the country or in the city. When in a town like this where there is everything to buy, money is the one thing most needful. this the paymaster seems most determined not to let us have, for we have been waiting patiently and impatiently too for that matter for the last three weeks expecting him to come most any time and pay us. And we are waiting yet, and almost without hope now for we have been / fooled so many times that we are beginning to think he is not coming till another month and then pay us two months more wages. It is supposed a good many will desert as soon as we are paid and may be it is on this account why we are going so long without money. I have been without a week now and as I have been without so long I will not send for any this time. It seems like putting it over the road the wrong way to have it come from home.

 

            What is Mr Cook busying himself about this summer now that haying is over? Does he and Kabe go to Milford with wood? You write of Ma's making cheese. How does that happen and the farm sold or the most of it. Do they feed the cows on huckleberry bushes and cabbage sprouts to make them give milk? If I was at home a cheese I suppose would last all day /

 

What should I go to doing if I come home this winter? Has Cook got any bean poles to cut? I think I would like to stay in Maryland till the winter is over if we do not get discharged til January. What has Elton gone into anything yet? I do not like the idea of getting around in the deep snow. you cant pick stones worth a cent when its more than two or three feet deep and I suppose that's all there is to do on the Benny farm is it not How much do they pay for picking stones now, and board. Has John got all that little wood sold that we cut seven or eight years ago. It will be getting sap rotten in four or five years more. Ans has not settled for that wood of mine yet has he? Well let him rip. I have not heard anything of him in a long time. Has he been abducted?

 

Waverlies come in occasionally for which I am obliged to somebody, a pair of chevrons in one

 

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they are on but I have got to get another pair for my coat, besides stripes and stripes for pants. It takes about a months wages to get them all Haint you got an old red striped petticoat will give me to make them of

 

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Two oclock in the afternoon On guard to day so is Laning. my relief goes on at three, and that ends my trip of guard duty to day Laning posts all the reliefs to night and I sleep We are all on again Thursday and the Sergeant posts them that night On again Sunday then it is my turn up all night I was up last Friday night so you see we are on in regular order every third day the two days between we have no duty at all except answer roll calls

 

I expect I shall go to living alone now Laning has been staying with his wife nights since she has been here and getting his meals here. She is now working at the boarding house and he told me that [faded] boarding there. Lowell Cook

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