Bowers Hill Va.

                                                                                                                        May 29^th 1863

 

            My Dear Mary

                                    I received your kind & precious letter last night & Oh I was so happy to think I had got so kind & good a wife so sensible to advise one when in trouble. It made me feel when reading it as your letters used to that I received at Washington when I first came out The course you advise is the one I ever have & always shall endeavor to follow while I am in the Army—To keep up good courage I learned by experience to be the best policy before I had been in the army long. But I am sorry my “home sickness” has given you so much/trouble for it was as your surmised but a “Blue Streak” & the result of a disordered stomach.

I wrote you in my last that many of the boys thought we should be home next month & be mustered out as a nine months Regt. The believers have been strengthened in numbers & are more firm in their belief As for myself I do not believe it & so shall not be disappointed Things look favorable for the union cause just now What the plan of the summer campaign will be no one can tell it is talked that the “Rebs.” contemplate acting on the offensive again this summer That Lee. is going to move his Army north either to attack Washington or invade Maryland & Pennsylvania But such a move I do not consider/liable to take place I do not believe Lee. will move his army while Joe. Hooker remains on the banks of the Rappahannock. Some of our troops have gone up the Peninsula again the 22^nd Regt the one John Coats is in is up there But of the 21^st We have nearly finished the fort at this place & have commenced one another about 1/4 of a mile down the road toward Portsmouth. Strawberrys Asparagus onions & such early “truck” are in abundance with us Strawberrys are as cheap as they are at home Judge White has been with us again He left for home Tuesday. We have a new Chaplin he is a laborious one He has divine service every night I see no marked effects upon/

 

Do not alarm yourselves about me I should not have written so much about it but I did not know what story White might tell I have been off duty now for (18) days & I tell you it seems a long time The doctor wrote a certificate (& I happened to see it) about my case for some purpose & he stated in that, that I should not be fit for duty in (20) days As long as I am as well as I am now I dont care much about it but if I should get very bad I should apply for my discharge They discharged a man at Newport News that was no worse than I/am with the same complaint But now dont worry about me neither you nor mother for it is not as if I had a fever or something of that kind that might prove fatal If I do have to suffer a little at times it is nothing I am good for it Much love to mother & you darling I can not love you well enough but may be I can come home some time this summer on a furlough then I will show you how well I love you

                                                                                    Good bye

                                                                                                Court

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