Decrows Point, Matagorda Penin.

Texas, Feb. 11^th, 1864.

 

            My Dear Wife,

                                                I can notice that the arrival of your letters is much more regular since you have been liveing in the P.O.

 

            Since I mail'd my last letter to you, I have rec'd two from you—one No. 2, and the other of a later date but minus the No. I am not going to say any thing about commenceing to No. letters with the New-year, and about keeping the thing straight &c; for if I should you would be sure to think I was hinting at you.

 

Olie's miniature came all right except one corner of the plate had been bent enough to break the varnish a little. She has changed considerably but not more than I expected. She looks older than she did and her head seems to have out grown her hair, but her features look natural. She looks so cute in her chick apron and I guess her flannel dress. I can see the broad stripes of your dress just behind Olie and I wish you would / stoop down a little so that I could see your face. I think you might as well have had your own miniature on the same plate with Olive's as not.

 

            Our Reg. went a sinning last Sun. We had a great deal of sport and caught a great many fine fish, and a great many large fish, and a great many curious fish, and a great many curious things that were not fish at all.

 

            I wish you could just see the proceeds of one haul with a seive in Matagorda Bay. You would see all the varieties of fish that ever find their way into any of our Northern markets; and you would see blind fish flying fish, silver eels, flounderers, sea horses, sea mice, sea rats, stingerees and thousands of other curious animals and fish that I think would puzzle the oldest man in the world to find appropriate names for. I believe of all the inhabitance of the land or sea a flounderer is the greatest lusus naturae. It is a flat fish shaped considerably like a fresh water perch or sunfish; but one side of it is white and the other black; it / swims with the white side down and both eyes are on the back or top side. I will give you a representation of its back with my pencil and perhaps you will understand its oddity better.

 

[picture of flounder]

 

There! I believe that is as good a representation of a flounderer's back as I can draw. I have Mr. Flounderer before me lying on his belly and I think my picture looks very much like him.

 

            I read a letter a few days ago written by a father, to his son who is a member of our Co. It is not necessary for me to mention any names, for you are so well acquainted with the man and his political principles that you will readily understand whom I mean / He pretends to be a Union man and always takes it as a great insult to be called any thing else; yet in the letter referred to he says—

 

            "Write as often as you can for it is the greatest pleasure I have to get letters from my sons who have been compeled to fight in this d—d nigger war, for it is nothing else. Stick to it F—k for I don't think the thing will last much longer. The people talk of runing Gen. U S Grant for the next President and I wonder if the Abs will vote for him or call him a copperhead as they did Gen. Jim M Tuttle."

 

            Is this the language of loyalty? It may be but it is just such loyalty that Jeff Davis loves; it is just such loyalty that would destroy the best government ever devised and established, for the sake of saving a slave oligarchy; & it is just such loyalty that we are fighting. What inconsistency in a man to call this gigantic struggle for our national life, a d—d nigger war, and in the next breath or by the next stroke of the pen claim fellowship with that uncompromiseing patriot chieftain, Gen. Grant. Gen Grant does not call this a d—d nigger war but he endorses and executes all the war policies of the President to the letter. Gen. Grant belongs to us and if we nominate him as our candidate for the Presidency, we will vote for him and we will elect him, but if he should leave his bright path of honor and mount the platform with such infamous traitors as Mahoney and Vallandingham we would, in justice to humanity and liberty, be obliged to call him a copperhead just as we did "Gen. Jim M Tuttle." We would denounce Abraham Lincoln or even the Savior of Mankind himself if he would accept the nomination of candidate for Presidency by the copperhead party. Copperheads are very subtill but they can not decoy us with old tricks. Even if the long tail did protrude from under the lyon's skin we could not be deceived by the reptile for "d—d nigger war" is unmistakeably a venomous hiss without any war about it.

 

            I feel like publishing a man that will write such a letter as the one in question, and I believe I would reply to it through the Patriot if the writer was not such a close neighbor of ours.

 

I am anxious to know the contents of the letter Liggins wrote to Jim. You said in your letter that you would mail it, but it has not come yet.

 

            The lock of hair you sent, so neatly wreathed in wire, is a fitting emblem of the affection I cherish and shall always return.

 

                                                                                    Your affectionate husband,

                                                                                                                        Enos Reed.

 

P.S. Cooney is writing a letter to the girls and Ira which I will inclose with this.

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