Ooltawah. East. Tenn

March 28^th 1864

 

Dear wife

again I will write to you I am well harty and I believe lazy but never to lazy to write I was a going to write yesterday then I concluded to wate for the next mail so I wrote to Mary Boyer yesterday in answer to hers I got the night before yours came

 

this morning I look for your letters with as much interest as I do for my rations and receive them more joyfully than our hardtack you say you have such cold wether well we have had verry disagreeable here so much rain and sno the like has never been here they say here they dident expect the Yankees / to introduce there wether along with there other customs so soon yesterday Easter Sunday was warm and nice today is windy and sines of rain the wind shakes my shanty where I set so I cant write verry well I see I must knock under to you you are getting to write better than I can George is improoveing he does first rate do so again I always like to get letters like his write again George I must tell you how our regiment is going to get increased for a while at least the 2 Illinois Regt of our old Brigade have went as veterns all but one hundread of the 38^th and some of the 21^st they are comeing with us they say if they put them in them KY Regts of the Brigade they must put them under guard they wont do duty in any but the 101^st / They kno us they have been with us 18 months and in some tite places hard marches and hard battles I dont kno that I have any thing new to write as things is all quiet on our lines and it is all the same thing with us day after day we still have our hard tack and poark and coffee we have more coffee than we use altho always have it 3 times each day Often do I wish you had what we could spair you could drink good coffee 2 times a day there is 4 of us together we get about 6 tinfuls of browned coffee for 5 days we could do on half if we would pound it fine and make it decently strong our other rations is plenty short enough I fear your ration of wood is short for you and George both complain / of being cold while writeing if you got that picture I sent let me kno it is from a paper of tobacco one the boys had I feel like sending something and that was all I had I have made a little book of Laurel root they say it is nice I will send a little box someday with a lot of little things if we stay here I see some of they boys are getting boxes of cand fruit and things sent from home I dont think it pays as long as US furnishes plenty hardtack and sowbelly well I see some of our neighbors girls gals go by they have some more grindstones for sale or any thing els especily one she is larger than Mat Merriss leg like a flour sack as far as I saw that was nearly to her knee as her dress dont reach much below the boys call her 20 Dollars as she got that of a Illinois soldier to sleep with her one night rather expensive I should think I will close and write another time this week

                                                                                                Charles Morfoot

 

[top margin] Send me a few stamps so I can write to Jeff and some I dont like to send without the stamp

SOURCES