Mobile, Al.

June 12^th—65.

 

My Dear Wife,

                        I have only time to write you a few lines and those few lines I write to let you know why I can not write more. We have just rec'd orders to get ready to embark at a moment's notice and as is common with me on such occasions, I have a great-deal to do that can not be delayed long. It is generally believed in camp that we will debark at Algiers or N.O. and from and from there go out into western La. or eastern / Tex., but most all our beliefs in the army are founded in speculation, and there is only one thing relative to this move of ours, of which the boys can speak positively: i.e. we are not going home just now. I do not like to write discourageingly to you, but it is nevertheless a fact that under existing orders, our Reg. is not likely to get out of the service before Oct. or Nov. This decision, that we shall remain in the service two months over three years from date of enlistment when the war is ended, we feel is a gross injustice, but it is one from which we can take no appeal / unless we had a Morton for Gov. of our State to interceed for us.

 

I rec'd No. 21 on the 7^th. All of us relished that joke on Harvey fully as much as I deplored that heavier one that happened to myself one morning before leaving Old Scott's nearly four years ago.

 

By the way Cooney has not told that joke on me more than five hundred times since we have been in the army, but I can say for his credit that he kept it as long as I insisted on it.

 

            You never wrote me whether you had rec'd that clothing we expressed from Barrancas or not.

 

Accept, dearest, my sincerest love.

 

                                    Your affectionate husband,

                                                                        E. Reed.

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