Camp 13^th N.H.Vol^s

As Near Petersburg as we

can get at Presant.       V^a

Aug 21^st /64

 

Dear Ari

                        I have just recieved your last letter this morning dated Aug 16^th and will try to answer it. I have got two other letters from you that I have not answered yet and I will tell you the reason that I have not. I have not been well for a week past and did not feel able to write so you must excuse me for not writeing before. I am on the sick list now but not very sick. I have got most well. I went out into the trenches a week ago to night and stoped two day and the Doct sent me into camp and I have been here ever since. the Regt are out yet. dont be alarmed Ari, for it is only / a bad head ache and cold. I have been trubled with my head for some time. it seems as if it would crack open some times it will ache so, I think it is the hot sun that makes it so, for the day that the fort blew up it was awful hot and four of our Co were sun struck, and I was so near to it that I couldnt see (it) hardly, and I think that is what makes it ache so. the boys say it is caused by my getting hit up to cold harbor, but I dont think so, for it was not bad enough, but never mind, it will be all right by and by. We have had a freshet here Ari, that liked to washed us all into the Appomattox River. there were quite a number got drowned before thay could get out of the way of the water, it come so fast / it filled our trenches full of water and I tell you if it wasnt nasty. I wouldnt say it, and we had to stand right in it all the time untill we got it draned off. How many times I wished that I had a New England pig pen to sleep in. I would like to have the chance to sleep to night in a place as good as your pig has got, for it is awful here, mud and water everywhere I am setting in the Capts bum proof, a place dug in the ground and coverd over, to keep the shells from hurting us, for we need such places now days. the Johnnys will open the ball about one oclock every night and the way the shells fly is a caution, but we get into our bum proofs and thay cant hurt us at all. 

 

Now Ari: dont you worry about me one bit, for I shall get along first rate. I will write again to morrow, if I feel as well as I do to day, and so on untill I get well. Oh: I have not got the last tobacco you sent me. the Capt had a letter from Sergt Morrison he is getting along slowly. his head is all healed up but one little place he wrote the letter himself with his left hand. he cant use his right one yet. I dont think it will make him crazey. well I must close. what you cant read you must guess at for I cant write very well to day. Give my regards to all the folks. tell Father that my courge was never better. Petersburg must come some time.

 

Give my love to Elmer tell him to write papa again. dont think that I am down hearted Ari, for I am not, from your affectionate husband,

Serg^t S. B. Tarlton

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