lookout mountain

Camp Starkweath

Jan 17^th 1864

 

Dear Mother

                        I seat my self prety late this night to answer your most kind and welcome letter whitch i received in to days mail and i was hapy to hear ove you all being well as you are you said you had a bad cold i was sory to hear of it but i am glad it is no worse my health is good and getting a long as well as i could expect owing to the circumstances well mother the carrs has got to running to chattanooga but it stil dont better the grub business with us and for what reason i cant tell unless they are shiping it on up to Knoxville as from what i can learn they rebles intends trying our men a / nother battle their it is reported that they are being heavy reinforced and that will be their only way to get us out of this is to drive our men out of Knoxville and then they would have the road open for then til Kentuckey and if they should do this we would be obliged to fall back to fight them but i think our Generals will watch this. well mother i tell you that this army has saw very very hard times ever sense we marched into this place and for two months previous to that time although the men are in prety good spirits i am going to tell you a little more but as a secret and i dont want you to mention it to any one i supose you have saw in the papers that this army was on full rashions and well clothed i am sory to tell you it is false at the presant time they is one third of our company that is so / bad of for shoose and other clothing that they cant go out on any kind of duty for the want of clothing and for rashions we are very hard up by times i cant say i have suffered with hunger yet but i have been prety hungry by times our men hapened on 50 pounds of flour and paid at the rate of 11 dolars for hundred the price was a mear nothing if we could get it when we want it if we hadent ove hapened on that i dont know how we would ove got a long i have saw some hard times and we have saw times that if we was to go home and tell to a person that was never in the army they would say it was all lies now mother i dont want you to think a bout me for i am getting a long and i will get a long mother you say you herd i was had reinlisted a gain i have not and dont intend to til i surve out this turm as you say to come home first and see how little we are thanked for what we / done we can see a nough of it in the papers to satisfy us we know we are little thanked for what we have done but it is our country that we have been struglen for and we dont ask no favors of ove them but it is hard that they will take advantage of us when we are engaged with the enemy where they ought to be with us but their day is coming i think if some ove them to come to Chattanooga and see the graves of the soldiers that have died of their wounds that they received in the late battles of Chicamauga lookout mountain and misionary Ridge they would come to their feeling they is acres of graves and i must say the choice men of the country they is some cases of smaulpox in chattanooga now they was a reble found near our camp the other day that had died ove the smaulpox he was in an old reble camp and was left by them and had died he has be lying over six weeks it was talked that our men would burn him as he was two mutch decayed to bury a soldier sees some hard sites but we have got prety well harden to it 

 

mother i am very mutch pleased with lideas letter it was mutch better written and better composed than alies was i dont mean to insult alies but i must say lideas was the best i intend answering them as soon as i get time alie does her writting a good deal like walts it would take a philadelphia lawyer to make some of walts letters out and i know they could both do better if they would take more time Dan Shearer is well also John Boyle the weather here is very cold and we have some trouble keeping up a fier as we have to cary our wood near a half mile we have but one team to our regt now we used to have ten but they have all died off for the want of feed sense we came to chattanooga in fact most all the stock in the army died off for the want of feed most all of the battery stock was / sent back where they could get something for them it is the report here that they was a large a mont of beef cattle on their way to this army from ohio and is now frose up in the snow in Kentuckey and ohio if this is the case it will be a bad gob you wanted me to let you know how long i have to stay yet i cant tell exactly if we are alowed our furlow time that will take three months of but if we dont get that we will have to stay till the 12^th of October we was mustered in the survice in September but the rolls now are dated October 12^th. it is not surtin whether we will get the furlow time or not but we are honestly intitled to it mother as it is getting very late in the night i will have to close hoping to hear from you all soon

                                                           

yours truly Abram Kipp /

 

i will now give you a list of what money i have sent home sense i have been in the survice i sent to Daniel before the lotment roll was got up 15 dolars and the first loted money was two months pay 26 dolars and the second time was 26 dolars and the third time Sam Crosly drawed it that was 52 dolars in all of the loted money i have sent home one hundred and four dolars besides the 15 dolars i sent / Daniel before the lotment roll was got up so this i send now makes 159 dolars so now i want you to tell me how mutch you have sent me sense i have been out in the survice

                                                                                               

Abram Kipp

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