Fourt Pickering

Memphis Tennessee

July the 1^st A.D. 1863.

 

Dear Beloved wife

With the gratest of pleasure it is that this morning finds me so comfortably situated that I can endeaver to drop you a fiew lines to inform you that I am fat and harty and I hope those fiew lines may find you all enjoying the best of health well Cordeliann it is so warm this morning that it almost gives me the spring fever well I dont no what I will do for I am geting so fat that my shirts are getting so small that I have to rip them open to get them on and then I have to so them up after I pull / them off and the tail of them dont cover my hips well I am so lazy this morning that it makes me swet to do nothing well I will stop righting now until after the mail comes in I think I will get a letter today

 

Well the mail has come and I got a letter from my dear beloved Wife and it was received with the greatest of joy and sadisfaction well I think it was a very mean trick of stoping a part of your bounty well Dear beloved Companion you must take good care of your self and not expose your self to much nor you must not work to hard out in the hot sun or you will overdo / your self and get sick it would trouble me very much to hear that you was sick but you must be careful of yourself I was glad to hear that little Mary Emma could begin to walk tell the little girls that pap says they must bee good children and when he comes home he will fetch them something nice tell Nancy Jane that pap says she must go to school and he will fetch her something nice and then she can reed for pap and bee a lady well the health of the regiment is about as usual there is nothing of aney importance going on here /

 

the Soldiers hymn

 

Soldier go but not to claim treasure

Mouldring spoils of earth born

Not to build a vaunting name

Not to dwell in tents of pleasure

 

Dear Beloved Wife all most one year has past and rolled into eternity since we have been permited to behold each others faces but I still hope that the time is not far distant when when we can once more be permited to meet and and have the pleasure of shairing each others society and spend the remainder of our days together with our sweet and beloved children so nothing more at present but I remain your Dear Companion           

Hugh Bay

to Cordeliann Bay

and children

 

[margin]

 

When this you see remember me

 

Dear and beloved ones at home

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