It has been a long week since I have written to you and more than a week since I heard from you. I have been out on picket or some other detail during the whole week and today I have to work all day to get things straight. I have been away so much everything has got at loose ends. I have received the box you sent but no letter since the one you wrote [on] the 12th. I forget the number and have not the envelope. I never was so disappointed in my life for there is no reason why a letter should not get here, all the boys get them but
It is Sunday and we are not marching but I have detailed half of our company for labour that is to help get [a] cannon on to the mountain. We expect a visit from old Jackson and are preparing to give him a proper reception. We hear that he is in the valley 20 miles below here and can’t get out any way but this. If that is so, he will give us a hard jab but I guess he can’t get far in this direction unless he gets here today for by tomorrow night everything will be ready for him. Of course, we don’t know whether this Regt. has got to fight
I did not intend to write you again this week but I received two letters last night, No. 19 and 20. No. 18 has not come through. I got what you sent in the Capt’s box, it did not get to us ‘till today. One of the bottles was broken and the contents had spoilt the paper you sent and nearly effaced the content of your letter but the butter came through in good shape and I think more of that than anything else. It makes the hardtacks (hard bread) go very well. I wish I had some all the time, but we get along well now for food. Not so well as
I promised to write you soon in my last and accordingly I catch a few minutes to fulfill it. We are building log huts and are very busy, it looks as though we were to stay here.
Soldiers building cabins for winter quarters. Source.
I was most discouraged Sunday but I heard yesterday that Burnside had been put in command of the army and it gave me a little courage to think that we were to have something done. I hear that the people of the North are disgusted with the manner that the war has been carried on. I can only say that they would have been more disgusted if they
