August the 14^th

Fourt Pickering

Memphis Tennessee  

 

Dear Beloved

Wife with the greatest of pleasure and much respect it is that I can enjoy the privilige of once more righting you a fiew lines in answer to your kind and much welcomed letter which I received yesterday and I was very sorey to hear that the little children are all sick Well I have been down to vicksburg and just got back yesterday and I must tell you all about it well we left here on the 5^th and got to Helena at 10 Oclock that night but we did not lay there long / we left Helena at eleven oclock that same night and landed at the mouth of white river at 9 oclock the next morning and we laid there til ten oclock that day and then we did not stop until we landed at Vicksburg we landed there on the 6^th at 11 eleven oclock and on the twelfth I went to the 16^th Ohio to see Alexander but I am very sorey to inform you that he is dead he is died on the 17^th of July at 7 oclock in the evening you canot imagin how I felt when they told me of his death his officers told me that he had been harty / all the time that they were marching and he took sick the second day after they had returned from Jackson Mississippi but his Orderley Sargeant went and showed me where he was beried he is beried on one of the Vicksburg bluffs on the bank of the Mississippi river he was beried in a nice place and a nice bord at the head of his grave with his name on it they sent his things all home but one likeness that a young lady had sent him from Iowa and that they gave to me and if I / but she has left Iowa and gone to Ashland Co Ohio and if I can find out what part of the county she is in I am going to send it to her her name is Mary Gill She is a daughter of the old preacher Gill's I have herd her father preach in Ohio Well I must close buy telling you that I am fat and harty and hope those fiew lines may find you enjoying good health So nothing more but I remain your dear Companion Hugh Bay

to Cornelia Ann Bay right soon

 

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tell the little children that pap is coming home to see them as soon as he can

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