Camp of the 15^th CV

                        Near Portsmouth Va Sept 1^st 1863

 

Dear Cousin Frank,

                                    No doubt if I do not answer your letter pretty soon, I shall receive a reprimanding severely at your hands, so I will “take time by the forelock” while I have an opportunity & “avoid the wrath to come”. Really though my time is pretty much all taken up. I have been on duty every day for a week now, & we have been moving camp besides, so that I have been kept continually on the go. Now that the weather has changed & become a little cooler, we have to spend nine hors a day at work about the fortifications instead of three & four as we did when it was so hot, & then it was too hot to/work or do anything else, but keep as cool as possible. But this afternoon wonderful to relate, by some mistake or other I am relieved from duty, & this letter, such as it is shall be the consequence.

 

Now, I have no news to tell, for everything goes on here in one unbroken round. Occasionally we have rumors of the rebels making their appearance, beyond Suffolk in our front, thereby causing some little stir in sending out cavalry scouts & set us all cutting down trees & falling them across the road. These rumors always come so as to make us work all day Sunday for fear we might get part of a day to ourselves. But “it’s all in a lifetime” serves to keep us out of mischief I suppose.

 

How do you get along with the/draft up your way? Every one becomes suddenly possessed of $300 I suppose. All right. I’ve no objections.

 

I tell you, I shoud like to pay you a visit just about now, but I can like as much as I please & that will be the end of it. Royal will have to go hunting alone again this fall, for aught I see. I presume he & Lizzie have got the letter I sent them by this time. Do you take any rides this season? or what do you do for amusement? you have plenty of that on hand I presume, you generally do. I’ve only got two years more to spend in this way & then I can take a vacation. a pretty good lengthy term though. guess your Father won’t wait till that time to finish this year’s haying. I did not like the trouble of moving camp this time at all. We had/got nicely fixed up there, shall not get so comfortably fixed again in some time, & by that time shall be ready to move again. We are a wandering community, settle now here in a cornfied, now there in a meadow, just as it happens. Wouldn’t you like that kind of living? When you come down here as you spoke of, bring the melodeon along. We can use it when mealtime comes for a table & at night, it would make a first rate bed. so much, besides all the music we would get out of it at other times. But it is time for me to close. Remember me to all the family. When I write next, it will be to Alice. Write soon.

 

                                                            Your aff cousin

                                                                        R K Woodruff.

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