Camp Leslie    Washington Feb 16^th 1862

                                    Much Respected Friend Agnes

 

This is a beautiful Sunday morning the sun shines clear and warm and what adds more to the beauty of all nature around the ground here this morning is clothed in a beautiful white. yesterday it commenced snowing early in the morning and snowed all day but to day the sun is so warm that before night the beautiful white garment will all be gone leaveing nothing to its remembrance but mud which I think is sufficient to remember it. to day we are doing nothing of any account the colonel and surgeon is inspecting all the tents which is done evry Sunday. we have the praise of having the cleanest tents and best arranged camp in or about Washington the men are very careful of their clothing and also of their health well Agnes I commenced this letter this morning but was called on to do some duty and did not get time to finish it so I now improve the present opportunity it being 8 PM but as I tent in with the lieuftenant I have the privalege of writing as late as I have a mind to and I am going to improve this night until a pretty late hour if I can keep a wake. I received your very interesting letter on last evening and I can assure you I was very glad to hear from you but I hope by the time this letter arrives you may be at home and enjoying your self if you get homesick in one month how do you think we feel being from home so long and scarcely any privaledges shown us. and at the present time we cannot as much as get a pass out of camp to visit the city let alone our friends and/acquaintences but with all this I will cheerfully bear if in time I can hear that america the country that I so much love can be once more at peace and when the fire sides of so many that are now vacant can be filled with the return of friends who are now in the broad field of battle. but remembering there are some that we know will never return I often think deeply on this matter and some times think I am one of these unfortunate ones. but if so I know it is all for the best for I have made up my mind to serve my country and not to return to any friends a gain untill rebellion is crushed out of our land I would return and see them all gladly for there are many of them that I love. but it is not my wish to do so for many reasons not giving any particular one. well Agnes I hope when you return home you will please give my best wishes to cousin Mary and sister Magy to Kate and to your aunt and more espeicially to your mother I often think of her for she when I was boarding with her reminded me of my own mother who cared for me when I was not able to care for my self and I often regret that I was absent from home when she departed from this life and have since mourned her loss. we do not know what our parents are until they are gone and then we miss them.

 

when you answer I wish you would send me one of your likenesses and then I will send you mine when I left I had a good notion to steal one but I thought perhaps that would not be right so I did not dare do it Agnes I wish I could just take a seat by your side to night and have a good old fashioned chat. but we are many miles a part and by this time I suppose you/are perhaps wraped in silent slumber while I am seated in a little canvas house where all is quiet and nothing can be heard but the burning of my fire and that only burns when it pleases but to night my tent is quite comfortable and a most too much so for I am getting sleepy and I think I will let this go until morning to finish now I am with you again this morning. the weather is very changeable it is raining this morning and very unpleasant but we shall all spend the most of the day in drilling for we have several new recruits and the consequence is we all have to drill to learn them it is now time for breakfast but it is not ready so I will write until breakfast is ready. I tell you what our breakfast is going to be, bread and coffee just what we had for supper and it is what we live on the most of the time well Agnes I believe I have told you all the news that I know, I am going to write to Mr Moyer this week he is in the 5^th [?] and I am going to send a few lines to your brother I now close hoping soon to hear from you

 

                                                            give my love to all my acquaintences

 

                                                            reserving a large share for

Agnes this envellope                          your self

has queer lineing but

it is all the kind that                            and if you see Marg give her

I have so you will                               one kiss for me and consider

pleas excuse its                                   one from me your self

color                                                                from your Friend F C Miller

 

                                                                        direct as be fore to Washington

                                    in care of capt ford Co A Stuarts Engineer Regt

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