Camp 1^st N J Cavelry

Monday Evening rain in the Bargain

December 19^th 1864

 

Dear Wife & baby

            How i would like to see you this stormy night i am in my log cabbin belly full and that ever lasting pipe good helth and warm but out doors you can go with coat and vest both off if it does rain so very warm it is getting towards Christmas and i cant get home but i never was in better sperits and feelings i do not have as much to do as i used to an extra stripe is a wonderfull help you must send me some pretty stripes for my arms you can buy them in any town we have yellow ones and three now get velvet or yellow cloth ones we have got wosterd ones but they / do not look nice on our dress coats we are very proud boots blackend and as clean as soap and water three times a day will make us we have inspection of housens three times a day and we have to be very clean and i am glad of it for some their pride in i have plenty of good cloths and warm ones another shirt would be perfible but still i get along i have been writing this is the third night and will not get through in three nights more but i remember you evry third night any how i want to write to both fathers and Annie William C Duryee and severl others why does mary stop i am sure i wrote her a good letter and i would like to hear from her any time and George why does he not write i am sure he has plenty of time how is his leg you never tell me any thing about him i think some of the familie might write / i do not know wether they like my letters or not you never say and i am sure you if any body ought to know if your father likes me to write i will write more often but i think sometimes may be they would rather i would be still i have a decent place now and i can write a good letter i would let them know all about the south and its log cabbins if they only give me time i will keep you pretty well posted this winter you let me know how your folks like my letters i shall send your father one to morrow if i get time any way i allways thought he thought a good deal of me any way i allways liked him i tent with williamson he has just come off picket we have good picketing now not a reb within 40 miles of our picket line unless they come through all grants army and i guess that will not be very soon now i would like to come / home but their is only one way to get their that is this if you write me a letter stating you have got to move and you are baddly situated and do not know wat to do and you wish i would try and get a short fourlough to get you a place to live as you have no one to see to you and you know not wat to do if i do not come and see to you and so on do not put any thing elce in only you are well but feel badly as you do not know were you are going to in the spring as the place is sold and you have to leave get sallie to write it she is a good schollar and knows how to do it for the cernel and Generl Davis and Generl Gregg and Generl Mead will all read it and then maybe i can get home to get you a place and fix you up again untill my term of servis expires wich will be in two short years more now i expect a good Christmas dinner from home and should i not get it i will look new years and if i do not get it then i will be dissappointed you need not send my tools i have got to be Sargent and do not want them i get better pay than i did befor and i guess we will be able to live i wrote for Sallie to make me a needle book i have my old one yet and i want a big thimble a haters thimble open at the end mind and get it Big my finger is getting pretty fat send me some good thread and some sewing silk some yellow and some black send some yellow cotton thread to and some postage stamps i must have stamps and cant get them hear if i had any thing to get them with wich i have not you spoke about that opium i will send it back if your uneasy i have not used the half of it but it is a fine thing to have about you wen you are on a march you do not want to stop evry ten minets and let the rest go on ahead and by the time you catch up you have to stop again you would take most any thing to stop it i bet now i dont want to hear any thing more about my eating opium you need not be alarmed but i have done about right or i would not got up as high as i now am and if i had been like some other corporals in my company got drunk on the raid i would not got it anyhow / sutphen is in a great pickel to think i got promoted and he did not he talks about nothing elce much he says o if captin had been hear he would got it but he did not think that i got promoted higher than the captin the Cornel for my good behavior on the last raid done it and a prouder man than i am now is not to be found in this united states army one pice of paper is not big enuf for my wife so i take more i gess it will bother you to read it but i am out of paper and out of monney pool is going to send me some paper you see that he is paid for it evry thing is terible high hear sausage 65 cts chees 50 cents butter 80^cts candles 2 for a ¼ and so on in [?] tobacco $4.25 per lb that is pretty high i tell you but we can do no better only on the raids we capture some leaf and smoke that it is very good but we cant carry much i have eat a great deal of chees and it is the only thing that cured me it comes on me yet once and a while but a little chees brings me all right again by the time you get this i hope to get one from you perhaps a christmas present if mother sends me a box i will make her a present to for i think a great deal of her and if any body should mary or any of the folks i would surly make them a much handsomer present but a box from home is the first hold of a soldier i have seen fellows nearly gone and get a letter from some loved one at hom and come up all right in fifteen minnets and lauf and talk as loud and lauf as merry as the best of them i have been making cocanut candie to night it is good to i wish you had some i wish you could taste it it is just like you buy take sugar and melt it up and stir in your cocanut i often think of the times wen me and you made candie in the old kitchen we will have one of our own some day wen i come home i will not need so many things now and we will be able to save some for a rainy day and you may need it to should i not live / Billy Beyer has gone to the hospital very bad with the bloody disentary he went the same time John Van [?] he went about 3 weeks agoe and i have not heard from him yet their is no way unless i go and see him or get a letter from him poor billy i wish he was hear this winter he is a good tent mate one way he is quarlsom but he is clean and not lazy now dear missy it is getting late and i must go to bed you must not forget poor me away down hear in the south in the mud but remember me in your prayers and give my love to all the folks as soon as i get my warrent i will send it home and then no one shall say i am not wat i write now i think if you get sallie to write that letter i will get home about the last of January it takes some time to get one through so now good night with plesent dreams to you and me if this letter is to long or to short let me know

 

Address S^argt H H Covert

C^om I 1^st N J Cavelry

Washington DC

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