Sedalia Nov 25^th..1861

comp F, 6 reg, Iowa vol          Sedalia Mo

 

Dear Ruth I write to you informing you that i injoy exelent health i received a letter from you last eavening O how glad i was to hear from you i had not herd from you for a long time i had just put a letter in the office and returned to the tent and was sitting eating supper when some one handed me a letter from you how much joy it gave to me O Ruth how can you dout my love and constancy to you you wrote that you some times thought that it would be better for us to never meet on earth again. O how those words pierced my heart have i not lernt a good leson have i not seen trouble enough have i not seen my sins and heartily repented have i not pledged myself be for god to ever prove true to you. O how do you think such thoughts makes me feel hear away from friends a way from home away from my dear little children they feal near and dear to me yes and so does / sweet Ruth O god forbid put your trust in the lord he is able to sustain you dear one. i was out to the timber today with three others for a load of wood how happy i was to get out in the fresh are & how sweetly the birds sung how it sited me back to gone by days to days of happyness and hope. well it is morning it is allmost 5 oclock the rest of my mess mates are asleep i have a nice fire in the stove and have my candle in a bayonet stuck in the ground by my side. you wanted to know a bout Sam well i did not see him after we took the parting hand at Burlington untill we arived at Springfield a bout two weeks ago whare i procured a pass to go to buy potatoes for company so i went to the reg to which he belongs he was out in a meadow drilling his men when i arived there i went to him and talked with him some time they campt 1 and a half milds from us you wanted to know if i wanted for any thing i have no reason to complain as to our nessisarys of life altho we donot have every thing that people that are at their own firesides injoy and have sometimes we get short rations but take it all round we cannot complain if you had seen me out on batalion drill yesterday after noon / you would seen me with blew pants blue roundabout blue cloth cap and cotton gloves and gun as brite as a dollar we are expecting an atact every hour by price and his men they are now within 40 milds of us fast comeing on well let them come we will give them as good a turn as we have in the shop our number is not so large as it was at Springfield but they will bark up the rong tree. at Springfield we had 72 thousand men but they would not fight then

 

O how i wish i was at home with my family with hom i have spent many a happy day yes many a happy hour have we spent together then our prospects ware fare and promising would to god that those happy days had continued but Ruth dispare not. keeping in good chear all may be well yet dout not my love to you it will be a greate pleasure to me to have the happy privelige of ever being kind and affectionate to my near and dear family may god spare our lives untill we meet. what a happy meeting yes meet near to sever and spend our remnant of days in peace and harmony together / altho i am sorounded with swaring ruf company i lead a strate forward cristian life yes thank the lord i expect to alwase be prepared to die Ruth pray for me that i may continue to live a rigteous and prareful life. tel the children that pap will be at home some day to stay with them I think i will be at home in the corse of three months and maby sooner

 

we will draw pay soon again we draw 26 dollars each this time Ruth you did not write how you was getting along write and tell me all about it. if i thought money would go through i would send some more to you for i know that you nead it do you think i had better send it well the rumer has just came in camp that we must start immediately to meet the enamy so i must close write often

 

                                                                        yours untill death may god

                                                                        bles you all

                                                                                    John G Scoville to

                                                                                    his famly

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