Camp Graham near Washington D.C. Sept 14^th 1861

 

Dear Kate, I received your letter enclosed in one from Hugh and was glad to hear from you and Brother Hugh at the same time and as soon as I can get time I will write to him. We have moved our camp about one mile and a half further over from Washington and we are attached to Gen^l Graham's Brigade. on our right is a very high hill which commands a complete range of the Virginia side of the Potomac and there is a Battery being planted on it which will throw shot or shell the distance of several miles. on the left of the camp there is another Battery of fourty two pounders already planted which they are going to test in a day or two. Co^l Birney's regiment lays right along side of us attached to the same Brigade the rest of the brigade have not arrived in the vicinity of our camp. Birney has a splendid Regimental Band and it sounds splendid in the morning and evening. W^m Carpenter is well and sends his respects to all hands. I do not like the place we are in as well as the place where we were before the ground is low and hemmed in all round by very high hills and the dew falls so heavy and the fog is so thick that / is nine oclock in the morning before you can see any thing and very near dinner time before the grass is dry we drill about eight or nine hours evry day so you can see that we have enough to do and very little time to write letters. I did expect to get paid off before this time and send you the money but we have not got any money yet and there is a great deal of grumbling about it Smalls men were paid off this week and they had a big time so I heard. I was over there on last Sunday and staid in camp all night I was out in command of a squad of six men in search of two deserters and arrived at Co^l Small camp after night and staid there all night and seen Robert Ashton Geo M^cAnnally and all the rest of the boys about up town. they have a Sutler in their camp and I send you a sample of the money they use in camp and when pay day comes the men do not have any money at all of any account the notes run from two cents to twenty five and they charge about four prices for every thing that you get. I would have wrote to you before this but I was expecting to have some money to send and will send it to you as soon as I can get it. We have some of the largest cantelopes or musk melons that ever I saw anywhere they / are as large as the large sized water melons you see in Phila. I am sorry to hear that Johnny has such a sore mouth tell him to be a good boy and when I come home I will give him my soldier cap. take good care of yourself and the children and I will send you evry cent that I can possibly spare as soon as I can get it when you write to me

 

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and it will come to camp wherever we are See Kelly give him my respects and tell him that I am very much obliged to him for the papers that he sends to me and that I receive them regular tell him that we have moved our camp and Kate if you would please hem two or three of them handkerchiefs that are in my trunk and give them to Kelly with that pair of woolen stockings for him to put up in a bundle to leave at the head quarters for me. I had a first rate silk pocket handkerchief which is the best kind but I lost it. send the things soon as you can with some yarn to darn with and a darning needle. Our first Lieutenant is in town now and any thing left at the head quarters will be sent down to me. I dont suppose that we will be paid before next week but I am very anxious to get some money for to get some smoking and chewing tobacco as I am out / and I expect that we will have to pay about twice as much for it in Washington as it could be bought for in Philadelphia as that is the nearest place that it can be got about here. I had a pretty good run about the country this week after two deserters I was out two days and two nights [cut away] around the country

 

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four miles of the Secession Pickets on the east branch of the Potomac river but we did not get the men. We came through Bladensburg on our way to camp and staid in Co^l Small's camp all night we were nearly played out and only five miles from our own camp but could go no further. I will have to close my letter now as I have to go on drill

                                                           

Yours  Tho^s Hatton

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