Evans Mills N. C. Feb. 12 1864

 

Dear Brother

                        It has been some time since I have written to you but I will try to make up for not writing before by writing a long letter

 

            I hear that you have been trying to do some thing that would have looked, to me, like an impossibility—namely, to get up a dancing school in North Rochester. I hope that you have succeeded in your enterprise by this time, for I think that any one that would undertake such a thing in such a place deserves to have his efforts crowned with success.

 

            It must be that there has been a great change in that part of the town since I came away for there was no one to go to a dancing school then. I dont think Mrs B. was very obliging to re-/fuse to let you have the store, though if Mr. B. had a little more will of his own he would not consult her about such a thing as that. If you get the thing in operation this Winter I would like very much to go home on a furlough and drop in some evening to show my awkwardness on the floor, though if I staid at home long enough I should expect to learn something in that time. How do you progress in learning to play the violin? you ought to be quite a violinist by the time I get home in [?] We might then get up a Cotillion band to make music for those who learn to dance this Winter!

 

            I must not forget to say a word about that sleigh that you mentioned in your last letter—I did not mind the cast of the thing, but it did seem foolish to me to buy anything that could be used so little, when there are so many things that are needed.—Perhaps we will have one though/ one of these days. There are so many things that I have threatened to buy when I get out of the Army that it will be hard to tell what I shall actually get but I intend to take some comfort any how if money will do it.

 

            I hear that you talk some times of going in to the army or navy. I hope you will never be so foolish! for I can call it by no other name. In the first place it would not be right for you to go and leave father and Mother all alone: Mother to worry herself to death and father discouraged with no one to help him and perhaps never expecting to see either of us again.—In the second place you are not able to stand the fatigue and exposure incident to this kind of a life and if you were here you would soon want to get back again to the old farm where you would be safe from all the dangers to which you would be liable out here. But remember that if you are once sworn/ in there is no escape hardly while life lasts, unless you desert.—You have no idea of the wickedness that there is in the army and Navy, and no one can remain with such surroundings any leangth of time without being injured if not ruined—If it is money you are after, you will find after you are a cripple for life that there are better ways of making it than by making a target of yourself. If it is glory you are after let me tell you that you would get enough of that before you had got through with your first charge on the enemys breast works. besides I think I can win enough of that for both of us and I am sure I had rather add a year to my time than have you serve a year in either the army or the navy. I dont think your father will think his reputation will suffer any if you dont serve Uncle Sam during this war.—I do hope you will not think any more of leaving home, but stay there and enjoy yourself—I think I have been away long enough to know how to value it and my advice to you is never to leave it home.            Your Affectionate Brother      Charles

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