Fort Hill August  21^st, 1864.

 

Nearly three months since I received your last letter and I had not written a line in return, when yesterday comes a gentle reminder that you yet remember your wayside acquaintance. Such an unheard of piece of constancy from one of that fickle class of the genus homo most certainly deserves a reward and as certainly shall have it, albeit 'twill not be at all commensurate. So you have been puzzling that "poor weak brain" (your modesty is quite refreshing) to discover the cause of my long silence. You / shall not longer remain in ignorance, though you have a sufficient dash of the Yankee in your composition to have rightly "guessed" it. I will be perfectly candid and confess that I was offended at the request in your note, and the concluding sentence of your letter "Good bye May I say &c" you ought to have known that you could not say that, and not so entirely have misjudged your correspondent. Now I will not tell you that I hate or despise you, for you know the old adage that "hate is akin to love", and / that would be a confession that would gratify, when I only intend to satisfy. of course I mean gratify your vanity. The explanation being made, shall we be content to let the "past be in the eternal past" (that part of it not pleasant to recall) draw the veil of silence and oblivion, and begin anew?

 

            Your "sound unvarnished tale" was deeply interesting in imagination (as a few months since in reality) I had followed you from the magnificent heights of Kennesaw Mountain to the doomed and desolate Atlanta, and strange as you may deem it, knew of your / safety. do you not wonder what lithe bird could have winged its way to me with the tidings. I heard it from a worn and weary soldier wounded at Peach Tree Creek. in my daily visit to one of the hospitals I met him learned he was from Quarles Brigade and—you know all the rest. Bye the bye, remember should you be wounded, Augusta will be the nearest and surest point, and if a furlough be not an impossibility, to wounded is not a visit to your Columbus relatives really a duty, and of course Augusta is en route. If I ever apologized for a /                     [cross-written]

 

stupid letter this would certainly need one, but my theory of a correspondence is that a good letter needs no apology and a poor one is its own. but I will tell you the circumstances under which I have written, a bevy of girls are surrounding me in the full gale of laughter and talk until my few spare ideas have all taken to themselves wings, and if a stray one should find its way into my cranium it would feel like a stranger in a strange land, finding no companions to welcome it. A beautiful bunch of flowers has just been sent me by a friend out of it I / select this one for you—take it as my peace offering and let it say for me, "I forgive and forget". And now Adieu. I have been running a race with old Sol and he has departed in glory, leaving only a lingering flame by whose fading light I must subscribe myself

                                                                                               

Sincerly Your friend

Annie E.

 

You failed to give me your address, which I suppose has changed with your command but I suppose I have rightly divined it

Continue to direct my letters Care D^r F. D. Ford

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