Annapolis, Maryland Oct 14 '62

 

My Dear Wife

            I am again out of the hands of the Rebels, and am at liberty to write a letter which no enemy is to inspect. Thank God for the privilege of again addressing my darling wife. We were paroled at Richmond on Saturday, and arrived here this evening via Fortress Monroe. I am in excellent health, and my arm is as good as ever, though a little weak yet where it was broken. I have written to you often, but do not know whether one of my letters has ever reached you. I am not sure that we will get off home for a day or two, and I am very / anxious to hear that you and the darling children are well. Oh how I have agonized on your account. I fear you have had a hard time of it, but if you are only all well, we will soon have a happy meeting. I expect to go to Washington City and get paid off to-morrow, and then go home as fast as the train will take me. We all expect a leave of absence of at least a month, and of course I will get one for the longest period given to any officer—I being wounded, and not yet hardly fit for duty. Shiloh was a bloody battle, and I was in the thickest of it. I was three days in the fight, the last being as hot for the 77^th as the first. Then the imprisonment, oh how tiresome to one of my disposition! Only think of spending / six months in the hands of the enemy without hearing even a word from the dear ones at home. I do not suppose you thought it possible to get a letter to me, even if you knew where I was; at all events I never got one. I would have given anything for a line from you.

 

I wrote you that, if you found it difficult to get along in Marietta during my absence, I thought you had better go to father's. I do not know where to go to find you. I shall go home as soon as I am permitted to leave here—perhaps to-morrow—and if you are gone to Penna., I will at once go there.

 

It rejoices me exceedingly that I now have an opportunity to write you, and am to meet you soon. / I could fill a hundred pages, and not tell you the half I want to say, but as I don't know but I may get home before this letter I will send you but four this time. I also send one to the Cin. Comm[?] and one to [paper fold] and if I stay a day or two longer, I will write again. Write me as soon as you get this, directing to Annapolis, Maryland.

 

Tell the dear little ones how I long to see them. I hope none of them have forgot to love their Pa because of his long absence. I have thought of you all and dreamed of you nightly, but waked with an aching heart to find myself still a prisoner of war. Kiss the sweet little dears all for me, till I get home to kiss them myself. I have scores of kisses for you all. You know my absence only increases my love for the dear wife who has for a dozen years been the idol of heart, and my affection for my dear children has no less bounds. Tell Emma I would have written a letter to her last Tuesday, her tenth birthday, but we started home that day. My dearest wife, good bye for to-night

                                                                                                           

AW M^cCormick

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