Camp of the 14^th N. J. Volunteers. Infty.

Baileys Cross Roads Near Washington D.C.

June 10^th 1865.

 

Dear Parents

                        Your loving missive of June 6^th came most welcome to hand last night and as I am at leisure this afternoon I will be penning you a reply, although I wrote but a shorty time since & you will not be looking for a letter, but it will do no harm to write at any rate. But for the past three days I have done nothing scarcely but write & my fingers are actually sore from holding the pen, but I am through at last, having completed our muster out rolls, pay rolls & discharges this morning. I expect we will start for the capital of Jersey in the course / of two or three days, today being Saturday. I think there will be transportation for so small a band as we will be, not many over two hundred & 25 out of one thousand men nearly three years ago, only a remnant of our former strength.

 

            It has been raining some this afternoon & still continues which makes it quite comfortable. I hope you are not having such a warm spell of weather at home. if it is I dont think I can put up in the house, I shall have to pitch my tent in the yard or in the garden under a gooseberry bush. you must have quite a garden I should think, you ought to have plenty of peas by this time. I think you said some time ago you had some planted, but I guess / I will be in time for them if I am too late for my strawberries & cream. I expect they will be played out before we get to Trenton, but I have picked quite a good many wild ones along the road from Richmond here. I picked a cup full two days before we arrived here but they were so sour it took two days rations of sugar to sweeten them, then I had to drink my coffee without sugar, but that was nothing new for almost always on the march I take my sugar on my tack instead of keeping to sweeten my coffee. I didn't see that it made any material difference after I became used to it and a soldier can get used to almost anything but fighting, that hardly ever came natural to me. to tell / the truth if there was fun in it I saw it but seldom, but there was a stern reality when a man was expecting every minute would be the next. the sun is coming out again, I guess the rain is nearly over. I suppose you have seen by this time the full accounts of yesterdays review in the New York papers. It was a big thing in the dust & hot sun & some of the Boys who have been through thick & thin for nearly three long years fell from the effects of the heat & dust which comprises the city of Washington. But I believe there is nothing more for me to write. I wrote to Clemmy last night, that will be one more kiss. I now close. May Heavens richest blessings crown you all & I remain

                                                                                               

Affec

your loving Son

Al

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