Camp near Freaericksburg, Jan,19,1863

            ever remembered brother i received a letter from you and was glad of it and thought strange of it to as i had never had on from you since you worked for me it is pretty sharp here to day the nights are cold and the ground is froze four or five inches deep we have had two snow storms since we come in to verginna two inches deep we have some verry warm days now but to day the air is sharp and clear i was down to the river day before yesterday on picket perhaps you may want to know what that is it is six or eight men and a corprel and sargent posted on a line i have lent faver a with an ofis perhaps you would call it an honer it is the birth of corprel i dont consider it any honer here it was something i did not want there is as much honer in being a privet in my estimation thare ant much honer in this war any whare that i can se with the exceptions of a few generals some of them will get it and some of them and what they are fiting for is money and honer and money at the head some say it is the Niger but i cant se it as for my part i have had war enough for the reason that it dont do ont do any good and never will in the way it is caried on when it looks to one like putting two bulls in to a field to se which will whip i dont think that eather side will gone a union by fiting and i am shure we shant if we have to leave so many men to gord those places that we take and some that we dont for we hant taken Fredericksburg yet and we have goarded it five weeks since we tried to take it i had a letter from Fred and he has bem near enough to hear the guns of the gray backs and hear them yell i think we shall go back towards Washington if we do and the dont move i shall go and se him i would like to be with him we cant always have what we want this the place to kill men whare they have to ly on the ground and nothing but comon shirting for a cover and pine boughs for a bead then the day is so much difered  the air from the night gets his blood chilled and two or three monttrs so that it will not be good for nothing and he is gone then soon it is a fine looking contry here i should like to live there if it was seteled by yankes but they dont live near enough to be neighbors hear one would have to go any whare from one half to a mild and a half to find any one they have large farms here form one hundred to one thousand achers but it is desolate looking state now thare probly has ben two hundred achers of wood cut of here in this vicinity and evry limb and chip picked up thare is a large army here now and it a godd  deel of wood and then they have built log houses some my tent is dug down about eighteen inches into the ground then one teer of logs eight inches through round the top then we have comoneaton cloth to cover us it is rather a hard looking house to live in when it rains as it dos to day and last night tho we hant ben wet yet i we for thare is two of us in the tent we some of the boys got dround out last night the woter run in to the hole thare wont be but few men fit for duty in of short time that live in this way we had nine hundred and fifty men when we left manchester now we cant muster five hundred fit for duty we have buried some whare about twenty five men out of our regement and the rest of are all sich and run away thare has been about one hundred diserted and thare will be a good many more as we are now wting orders for to go into another fight our orders are to be ready at an hours notis and we dont know whare we are a going but we think to fight thare has been rhumers that we ware going back to Washington but i dont  know i dont so it in that light still it may be so the eight corps hant been into the field yet and it as said that weware going back and they take our place that is all i know about it i cant rite more now so good by for this time i will the first oportunity S W Corliss

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