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[Blenheim?] May 14th

Your most welcome letter of the 28th darling Nina, enclosing Fath- ers and Mothers notes arrived yesterday how I cant - [?] you. It was sent to me from a free negroes house near here but however it came it was most welcome. It made me at first ex- ceedingly uneasy about my dar ling Mother, but I read the [pg?] what she said about herself and she seems to think there is no cause for my [uneasiness?] so I have determined not to allow myself to be so, but you must write as often and as soon as you can so as to let me hear. I have made various efforts to get letters to some of you since the fall of Rich mond but doubt whether any of them have reached you. People in this

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part of the country have been having so much trouble with their [ser?] vants that gentlemen do not [?] [?] to have their plantations. For a while they were very dangerous. They picked up the [?] which our miserable deserters threw away and banded [?] together and went about the country robbing and breaking into peoples homes. We did not have them in this neighborhood, but down about the C.H. they [kept?] the people in constant alarm for some [?] or five days, they have now been put down however. Poor creatures, they are shooting and hanging them without mercy over in Amelia and about the [?], I mean their yankee friends, so we hear Three of the [?] have left - and five of Mr. W. H.'s, but we have had no trouble with those who remain I have no heart to speak of our count try, this disappointment is very griev ous and hard to bear. God must have in- tended it to work out some great good, but

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it now is certainly hid from our eyes. It is hard to keep our faith, and the faith of many seems to have failed particularly among our soldiers, and I know not what today, when I hear them say as Willie [Starke?] said the other day, "certainly God is not a God that heareth prayer." I have heard some news of our friends which you don't seem to have heard. [Hugh McGuire?] is over here at Amelia Springs about 20 miles from here. I fear mortally wounded, certainly in a most critical condition, I have not been able to hear from him but once. I will send you [Hunters?] note, take care of it. Johnnie Williams is reported killed. I don't know whether it is true. [Mr?] Goodman inquired after Mrs. [Bookers?] boys for me after [Fitz?] Lees cavalary was disband ed and was told by a soldier of their com pany who said he had seen them and they were both well and safe and with the [?] [?] when it disbanded. He could not remember the nuances of any of the

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other boys. Maj Wolffe, Maj Hunter, and Keith Armistead [?] have several days on their way down, the Maj and Keith inquired particularly after you. Charley Dandridge came to see me too, I did not know the boy at first, he is so handsome and so like his father. Poor [Val?] Harris, [Francis?] brother was killed near the high bridge and they have never been able to find his body. He was the [flower?] of the family, as it is all over but how fallen. Tell Mother