Camp 1^st N J Cavelry

Thursday Evening December 22^nd 1864

 

Dear Wife and Boy

                                    I again try and have a little conversation with you i remember you evry third night i have to leave now wat am i mad to go to school back again we have some laufible incidents but all right it is a thing we ought to do i wish it was oftner but i hate to be interupted it is very cold hear to day and to night the wind blows very hard and cold Williamson is on picket poor old man i wish he was hear i get clear of all duty now only wen my turn comes wich is not very often my tent is cold but i got a good fire to day one tent in our company was burned down i have to watch mine to night another camps fire not in our company but in another so you see the poor soldiers is liable to burn out to how i would hate to burn out such a night i hope that you are good and warm i feel very coffertble now cold on one side and burn / on the other i think i will have to stop if it was not to you i would finish it to morrow now you know that the holidays is coming i have had two presents anyhow one of them a very fine one 2½ yards of gold lace to make shivrons for my arms and the other a lot of paper and envalopes very good paper this is some of it and fine large sheets one can get something on a sheet of this kind and it is so smothe i like to write on it and i think you can make it out somehow i am not much of a writer but you spell it out some how i dont have much trouble in reading your letters i dont get any to read i havent got a letter in two weeks only one that mother wrote on the 28^th of September were it has been all this time i cannot tell but i got it at last i have not writen you father or mine a letter yet i do not know wat they think of me but i will come it on them to morrow if i have not much to do the days is so very short to day and tomorrow the two shortest in the year i never felt better in my life than i do now days i am very fat got a double chin you must not worrie now i am better than ever i have been / you should see me eat pork i can eat a hunk as large as my fist for dinner did to day a quart of bean soup and half loaf of bread we get soft bread twice a week i can live very good now off of the rations the goverment furnishes us but if i had not had monney wen i was sick it would been all O R with Hank i can lauf now and jump on my horse but for a while i could not get on with the saddle and that was pretty near a case with me now wen you write if you ever do why just let me know how you are getting along how you are off for wood and coal and if you can live off the monney i send you i will not want so much monney wen we are paid again i have just got your letter dated on the 18^th i am glad you got my letter i am back in my log cabbin been to north Carlina i wish you would send a box you let father have that lether at just wat i give 80^cts and it has dried out 4 lbs so you best buy the [?] but he has had trouble enuf with me this year to pay for that you must keep an account to of wat you let him have he will do wat is / i think so you need not fear i got my gloves all right you must let Levi have my skates if he wants them he cannot break them i told him to look after my gun to you do not write any more about it we have had no snow you can go with your coat off until to day and i have not been cold and i had to drill the men this forenoon my dutys is less now i have got an extra stripe it takes off a wonderfull lot of duty i am sorrie to hear that John Hustwaits has lost his father John is one of my best friends i tell you you must treat him as you would me if you father dont keep me one of them dogs i will not like it you can pay the tax and i will pay him for keeping the dog as for the game cocks you must get them and eat them George knows were they are and you eat them they will not cost you any thing and are all fat i warrent you better get them and eat them right off as soon as you can they was only to keep them until this winter you need not think that i will be discouraged if i do not get a fourlough i do not expect one but tell father if he comes down hear he will never regret it the longest day he lives it is the greatest sight he ever saw i am sorrie to hear you have to take a smothing iron to bed with you if i was their i think you could dispence with that article of luxury you must not come hear this winter it is no place for ladies but next winter if the war last i hope to be an officer and then you can come you must not be afraid of my fighting it is not wat you think at all we go in and lauf and talk as if nothing happened why we do not see a dead man as often hardly as you do the fighting part is nothing you need not fear if a man would live at home he would live hear the reason the letters is so long a coming their is no stamp on them you must try and get father off he can come in two days

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