Keokuk Ioway

                                                                                                                        July 10^th 1862

 

                        Dear Sister

                                                I supose that you can not tell what Im doing in Ioway I wrote a letter home that I had bin sick again but had got about well agin once more & I thought that I would go to my Reg the next day after I wrote but the Doctor would not let me go he thought that he would send me up to Keokuk to prisen to improve my health Im now in a 5 story brick building a very larg building it is the General Hospital of Keokuk there is. 12. hundred sick & wounded men in this Hospital/at the present time. Im in the 4^th story on the south east corner of the building where I can look up the river & see the steemboats puffing along & I can look over in Ills & see the harvest crops all about ready for cutting It is very plesant here there is another building that has 3 hundred sick in & their was 4 hundred more arived here yestarday morning so they say & all to gether would make 19 hundred sick men. There is 3 of my Reg with me we are all able to walk round & take care of our selves but we are guarded in all the time we are not even aloud to step out of the doore it beets all the arangments that I ever saw they wont give a man a furlow nor a dishcarg unless he is very bad of for if he/dies they get paid for burying so they tell me. We get fed well a nough good bakers bread or soday crackers & corn bread tea or coffee beef & chicken 2 twice aday & a little fruit and so on & Well I guess I will haft to stand it & do the best that I can but it looks mity bad to keep any one pend up so clost when they are able to walk a bout. This is a very nice Town on high roleing ground & most of the buildings are brick. I do not know when I will leave this place I will have a good big ride when I get started for it tis about 8 hundred miels to my Reg I guess they will be in Memphis by the time I get to leave this place I will get to see rite smart of the Country I was well plesed/with my trip untill they got me in the Hospital & then the fun was over I got a ride of about 8 hundred miels I got to see St Luis [?] & several other placis & I got to see the sedar tree growing on the rocky hills & a great many other things I got to see was new to me I like travling fine. I would like to travel home & then travel up to see little Emma Cate & fred & all the rest of you I could enjoy it fine if I get sick any more I will get a discharg. What kind of a 4^th did you all have I was traveling on the Ohio River was the kind I took I feel very well this morning I rote a letter to cate since Ive bin here Direct your letter to T. A. Simpson Co. K. 28. Reg. Ills. Vol Keokuk Ioway write soon for I want hear from you & what Mr Rush is going to do my love to all from your Brother T. A. Simpson

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