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July 10th 1862

Dear Nannie – I got another first rate [‘first rate’ underscored]

letter from you last evening dated July 3[r]d – I was looking for it, & know there is another in R[ich]mond [Virginia] for me now. You have no idea how much good your letters do me. Doc & Sam got long ones from Millie too, Tell Millie & [?] they ought not to [?] letters with [mine?]. Tell Charley I thank him for the little flowers & keep them because he kissed & sent them. You dont know how anxious your letters make me, to come home. Especially when you tell so much about the children, & seem so anxious for me to get a fur- lough. There are so many sick in our company & reg[imen]t, that it will be im- possible for me to come. Seven have died in our reg[imen]t, in the last eight or nine days. I have kept so well the

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whole time, they will be unwilling for

me to go – then most of our men have been absent from home much longer than I have. I was on picket with our com- pany in sight of the battle you heard Tuesday evening – wrote you a letter that day. The firing was the most awfully [horrific? ] I ever heard. There was a report of a cannon at least every second & the roar of musketry was continued & unbroken for two or three hours. Said to be the hottest battle of the war. I could see the smoke & the bursting of the shell & the flash of the guns after dusk – You answered a good many of my questions in my last [‘in my last’ struck-through] – please answer the remaining ones. Kiss the children for me – tell Charley I will answer his letter soon. Your devoted husband N[athaniel] V. W[atkins]