Camp near Ocoqwan April 20

 

            Dear Mother.

                                    Yours & Henryes letters of the 12^th inst inquiring so anxiously about my ancle came to hand two or three days ago but I have not had time to write since. I trust before you receive this you will have received a satisfactory answer to your questions about that but for fear you should not receive the letter which I wrote over a week ago (but which I could not get in the mail for a day or so on account of my being one of two hundred of our Regt who were out on picket for a week & had no post master with us) I will tell you again that it (the kick) was nothing in the first place & Charley said he only put that in / because he could not think of any thing else to write it was so slight that I did not think it worth while to write about it being all well when I wrote. it was so slight that I walked to my meals when I could have had it brought to me by saying the word. why some of our boys did not know it until to day.

 

The next thing I want to speak of is that beutifull house knife which you sent to me. I was glad to get those stamps for I had but one left. that knife was a very pretty one I fully appretiate its value but it is not such a one as a soldier neads but I can use it to sharpen my pencil & such things.

 

Capt Thompson was out with his / company & he got three rebles two tents & a dozen blankets one hundred of our boys went out this morning it was said, to rout eighty bush whackers who were said to be in a swamp some where about here.

 

We have got quite [?] camp at present. it was a meddow but it is now covered with pine under groath of a few years standing so that it is an other grove. you said in your letter that you supposed we were in the midst of wilde flowers but you are mistaken for there are only a very few of the earliest & those are not wilde. there are only now & then a spot where the grass is green & those are sheltered places. This country is covered mostly with / old plantations grown up to under groath they were worn out so that it did not pay to till them land here is not worked as it is worth they plow it with one horse plows so that insted of plowing it they only rake it over.

 

Our lieut has been out forageing twice & got considerable hay boath times but our horses got most of it so one the boys found out where there was a hay stack & we went & got all we could carry on boath sides of our horse's.

 

The way the Lieut did if he found a farm where he thought there was any prospect of geting any he would look & if they had got any he would tell them to harness up their teams & take a load to camp he would then leave two or three more to guide them back to camp & he would go on to the next house.

 

When he started out he said to them I can not alow you to take any thing & I don't want to see you take any thing but if I [?] get the wing of a duck [?] cooked I should not object.

 

When we take hay from men who have taken the oath they can come & show their papers & then the quarter Master has to give them a receipt so that they can get their pay when the war is over. / their oath is not good for any thing the scouts who are guides for us say that as soon as we are gone they are rebles of the worst stamp.

 

One of the men we have as prisoner our boys saw when they were across the creek the other day he was of course a good unionist said he lived on this side of the creek.

 

Tell Henry that I thought I had writen to him as many times as to any one else I will write to him the next time & to Jamie also.

 

You must not be worried if you should not get my letters regular for some times we are sent out by companies on picket for a week & have no way to / send a letter to a post office.

 

Give my love to all the folks

 

from your affectionate

son W^m. G. Gage.

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