Camp Youngspoint. March 1^st 1863

 

I received                                                                                Dear Father and Mother

I received your letter of the 15 about a week agoe but thought I would not answer it till I could think of some thing to write I wrote to you the day before I received it since I wrote before we have moved about half a mile out into a corn field and camped there we have abetter place than we had before the doctor thought it would be for the health if the regiment to move I think that we will have better watter than we had in the other camp and we need that as much as anything I am well now and doing duty agane from the 22 of January till the 25 of february I was quite out of health and did not do a day of duty in the whole time but now I feel as well as ever agane the boys say I am getting fat as a pig agane

 

            it was with great plesure that I read the few lines that Grandpa wrote I was glad to know that he had not forgoten me I was supprised to see how good he wrote his hand was so steddy for such an old man

 

tell Cordelia that I am much obliged for that mark she sent me and will try and keep it /

 

Pa I am a thousand times obliged to you for the money you sent me it came very handy to me for I was most out of paper and envelopes and did not know where I was going to get any more the pay master has come and I expect we will be payed off now in a few days so you need not send me any more money now

 

now I will try and answer your questions you wanted me to tell you how I liked my hard bread and bacon and how I eat it I will tell you how I like it I dont like it attall and I dont eat any hard bread when I can get rid of it we draw flour and pickled pork we get yeast at the boat and bake as good bread as I want some times we get out of bread some times and then we have to eat hard bread some of our bacon is cured good and some of it aint we had to eat bacon where we were at Vicksburg before we drawed some bacon that was full of bugs and magots in some places but we did not stop for that I would like some of your apples and butter and potatoes now ma I will try and answer yours we have the best kind of oficers some of the balls came so clost to me that I could feele / the wind from them one of them passed within an inch of my head and it struck one of the boys in the arm clost to his sholder I did not help burry our dead but I can tell you how they wer burryed they dug a long trench and put them in sideby side then they throwed the in the durt on them the Capt has a negro cook I have not stood gard nor worked on the canal yet but I suppose I shall I now that I am on duty I wash my own cloths I have had a few apples that I payed at the rate of 3 to 4 for a dime I have not had any lemons or oringes yet I have plenty to eat to day we drawed some codfish and indian meel for the first time I will tell you what you we drawed to day we drawed flour indian meel beens cod fish coffee black tea sugar molases vinegar rice pickeled pork and fresh beef the beef was so poor that it could hardly stand up they are what we call dryed beef be sure and send me a hook and line when you write that one that I reged for fishing in Chipaway lake if you cant send the hook and line in one letter send it in in the next 2 send the hook first and if you have sent it send me one of them / black hoocks with the eye in it is a great place to fish in these bayous here day before yesterday I went fishing and catched 3 I guess I have got the start of you this year. the other day when I was fishing I picked a hand full of violets the trees are begining to leave out. you may think that I am hard up to write on such paper but I onley wrote on it to let you se what kind of paper the secesh have this is the best paper I have seen that was taken from them this come from the post when you write tell me all the nuse it is getting so dark that I cant se so I will stop tell Emmy Tillotson that I will write to her next time I will write to grandpa before long give my love to Grandpa and Grandma and all the rest write soon

                                                                                                            N J Fuller

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