No. 43.                                                                                               

Woodville, Ala.

Dec. the 28, /63

 

Dear Mollie,

I will write a fiew lines this morning to let you know that I am yet alive & well. I wrote you a letter the 17 & we started the 19. we have been on the march ever since. the past three days it has rained all the time. the roads are geting very bad. it is most imposibel to move our train. we have stoped here to let the roads settle some. I cant say how much farther we are going. some say we are going to the next town about 10 miles from here to go into winter quarters & others say we are going to Memphis, but I dont believe it. I think we will stop along this railroad until spring & then we will go to georgia. I think we will have one more big fight & that will / be at atlanta. if we have good success at that place I think it will use them up. I receive two letters from you the 18, they came in one envelop, 32 & 3. I got one since we started on the march, no. 35. I have got all your letters since Sept. we had a mail yesterday but thare was nothing for me. I saw Dow the day before we left Bridge Port he was well & harty. you spoke in your last letter about going to Illinois. you did not say whare I should direct my letters so I concluded to direct them to clarence until I heard from you. well Mary I have heard some thing that troubles me very much. I dont no as you know it, if you do, you never have writen to me about it. Dow told me at bridge port he got a letter from Alfred & he said that Ann was the same as she had been. / I asked him what was the trouble with her, wen he told me that she was deranged. I told him it could not be for I had not heard a word of it. he said it was so, she had been so for more than four months, nearly ever since her child was born. now Mary if you go to Illinois, I want you to write the perticulers about it, for I wanto know how it is. I dont no as I have much more to write this time. the boys are all well & harty, & as for my self I am heavier than I have been since I was sick in Illinois. I weigh nearly a hundred & fifty lbs & I think I am as good a man as we have in our regiment of my heft & not bosting. well no more this time, write often from your husband, O Shibly

                                                                                                           

To M. C. Shibly

                                                                                                           

good by, mollie

 

I spent my christmas a marching & I expect we will spend newyears the same. it is very diferent from what it was seven years ago when we were at home enjoying ourselves but I hope we can live to see that time again.

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