Away down the nearest to

                                                                                    Warrenton of any civilised place

                                                                                                            Sunday Nov. 9^th 1862

 

My Dear Dear Darling Wife

                                    I expect you begin to wonder if the Rebs. have not laid my “Corpus” under the cold “airth” But thank God an opportunity has at last come for me to relieve your anxity & mine to Word has just passed round that a mail will leave to morrow morning & I immediately commence writing No mail has left the Army since/I wrote you last I did not expect to have a chance to write or hear from you again untill after this campaign I received two letters from you the evening after I sent my last one of the 23^rd & the other of the 25 of Oct both first rate & I can’t begin to tell you how acceptable I thank you very much for the stamps I have enough now to last some time as you are my only corespondent I at the same time received two for Edwin one from his father & one from Frank I opened them both according to his request in the one from his father I found two dollars which with both the letters I will enclose send to him in this mail this being the first opportunity I have not heard from him since or any of the boys in the Hospitals since I left Pleasant Valley * * * *I commence again and in such a good mood all on account of receiving a letter from my/darling dated Nov 1^st and the mittens Oh such nice ones I am the prodest man in the Regiment When I left off writing I was called to inspection of arms & Dress Parade which took untill dark I then being nearly starved bought 6 pounds of Steak of the Comissary which we three cooked & eat about half of & then being fortunate to possess a candle I commenced writing I will go back to where I left off in my last I wrote of a Saturday the next day a week ago to day we started again on the march that day they gave us a good one we marched all day & that march threw all previous ones in the shade we were very tired & my shoulders how sore but that night I went in bathing the water almost froze & it took the soreness all out of my shoulders/since then I have carried my Knapsack with ease the next morning it was cold John was sick we commenced the march early about noon we reached the vilage of Union at that place there had been some fighting we could hear the booming of the cannon ahead of us about Sunsett we left the road & went off through the fields on reaching a slight elevation where we could see down on the plain to our right we saw our first for the first time a battle. we could plainly see the both parties it was a kind of a skirmish both parties constantly changing positions There were a variety of emotions waked up in our company but the majority longed to get into the fight they were destined to be disappointed the Rebs seeing us coming—Skedaddled if we could got into position without them seeing us we could have taken a few hundred or perhaps thousand prisoners

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