Fairfax Station, VA, Jan 17th 1863

Dear Wife,

I received a letter from you last night which I read with pleasure and I hope with profit. The moral lesson you gave me I will try and remember, I always thought your standard of a man too high for poor fallen humanity and I think perhaps if you look over your past life you may find that you have deceived in matters of as much consequence as a few paltry dollars but enough of this. I fully confess my guilt (and did so I thought in my letter and asked pardon).

I am glad to hear that you have got some of my letters, I began to feel anxious about them.

Mt. Carmel Thursday night Jan. 15th, 1863

My ever dear husband,

I usually write you Wednesday nights, but I didn’t write last night for I thought I would wait and see if I got a letter from you tonight, and I did get one; written a week ago last night. I find by your letter that you get my letters in better time than I do yours, you say that you got my letter written the night before New Years, Monday night, I didn’t get yours written the same night until Thursday. I received your letter, devoured its contents greedily, and was rejoiced to hear that you were well; I always feel so anxious when it has been some days

Fairfax Station, Va, Jan. 11th 1863

Dear Wife,

I received the box yesterday all right, everything in good order but I could not tell what belonged to me. I took the box that had my name on [it] and as I could not claim any more I left the remainder with the Capt. who could not tell any better than me what belonged to him, but after a while he concluded that part of the sausages belonged to me, how he found this out I can’t see for they all lay in the box together he sent me in some. If you send me another box at any time send it separate. The Capt. is all right but there is

Mt. Carmel, Sabbath afternoon, Jan 11th, 1863

My own dear husband,

It is a beautiful day after the storm and we had a very heavy rain last night but it didn’t last long. I thought very much of you and hoped you was where you was protected from the storm. Mother has gone to church, I haven’t been today. I find so little time to do for myself that I am really getting almost too shabby to go annoy folks if I could find the time, and felt like it. I could rig up some of my old dresses so they would be good enough for me, without any expense, and I must try and do it before long.

I