Camp near Murpheysboro                             

April the 26^th 63

                                   

Dear Mother

                      I seat my self this morning to answer your kind and welcome letter whitch i received on yesterday and was sory to hear of alie being sick but i am in hopes by the time this letter reaches you she will be able to go to school a gain my health is as good as i could expect i wrote a letter to manda M^cKalliss on picket the other day we have left tenn and we are encamped a bout one mile from tenn we have one of the nicest camps in the department you say they is going to be a great union meeting in Shearers burgh mind and give me all the perticulars in your next letter you say they is stil a good many coperheads a round their i know they is and i would like to talk to some of them i think you must have a great time with them their at home but Mother i hope the time will soon come when the soldiers can go home and then i want the coperheads to keep their distance from me i received a letter from John Potts a fiew days a go he sayd they had marching orders with 8 days rashions in their knap sacks but i see in to days paper that the rivers is to high on the patomack for that army to move i think you will have the pleasure soon ove seeing walter home soon i hant had a letter from Walter for some time if he has written to me it must of been lost for i hant had / anny from him but i hope i will get one soon i still hear from Potts that he is in good health Potts talks like he will get home soon i hope he will and the rest of the boys well mother i like it some better in camp than i did in town we gest got in of picket yesterday we was out two days i wrote mandays letter whil i was on picket we had a very nice country to picket in but they is a great smell for they is a great many dead horses lying a round their sense the battle but it is very hard to turn a soldiers stomach when we are on picket we ant alowed any fier so we have to eat our meat raw if not cooked before going out whitch very seldom is done but i have got so i can eat the very fatest meat raw and glad to get it well mother you say you like that paper i sent to you i knew you would like it i sent it to ant mary for i thought she would like to read sutch a paper as the Nashville union manda sayd she would like if i would get a furlow and come home she says i could have a good time i think i could a mongs my friends but i am a fraid i wouldent enjoy my self so well a mongs the coperheads not saying they are but i mean them that is as i hant mutch to write i will close hoping to hear from you soon

                                                                       

Abram Kipp

SOURCES