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Chaffin’s Bluff Batteries

May 21st 1863

My dear Wife:

I received yours of 14th, just as I mailed my last; & would have written yesterday, but was on the working party, & didn’t have time. To-day I am on guard, and will try to finish this to send off by to day’s mail. I don’t have as much time, and can’t write as regularly as before, but will continue to send you the same number of letters. Everything has been going on very quietly here for the last week – no news of any kind, nothing to interest. I always look back- ward & forwards to your letters, & [frequently?] count up twenty or more times a day, to see if it isn’t time for another to come, but now more than ever. I don’t think a night has passed this week, Darling, that I haven’t been visited by you & our little ones, - Minnie & our dear little Charley. As time passes on, habit leads me to fall back into my old ways of thinking, & planning about you & them, (just as if he were still living,) – and then the painful

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thought comes over me that his little soft, winning caresses & his pure love will nev- er gladden our hearts again. Oh, Darling, if it is hard for me here to bear, how much more must it be for you there, meeting every- where little tokens to remind you of his ab- sense. How sad a pleasure it would have been to me, if I could have put my arm around you, Precious, & comforted you while separating their little clothes. Here I can only pray that Jesus, who can sup- port & comfort you infinitely more than I can, will always encircle you in his way of love & mercy. I enclose in this, a letter from Bro Dick, received yesterday, which you will keep. Such letters as we have received, and from such [ ? ], are indeed a com- fort. I am so sorry that Bro. Dick & I cannot be together. I also received a letter yesterday from Beverly Scott, (son of John Archer,) asking to be admitted into our [compy?], & I will send him to-day a certificate of admission from our Capt. [as?] he is just Eighteen, & was at college with Daniel & Sam. I am glad you

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continue to take exercise, & went over to Aunt Judy’s. As soon as Minnie gets well & strong enough, I want you to make a visit of several weeks to Pr. Edwd., if you can first find out that there is no danger of whooping cough – if you do not go there you must go to Aunt Mary’s. I don’t want you to treat this as you sometimes do my recommendations [ ? ] [ ? ] look upon them as impossible, & pass them by. If you will come to Pr. Edwd, I will promise to try to come up & spend one day with you; & think I can do it. Tell your Pa, I have been told, by a member of our compy, who has had some recent experience in winding up an es- tate, that among the last acts of congress was one providing for paying old debts with confed notes. It provides that when confed notes are offered in payment of a debt made before the war, & are refused, the debtor may invest them in gold or silver, and force the creditor to receive the gold or silver, be it little or much, as an offset to the debt. I wish he would investigate the matter, & see if it is so; and when Tom

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Covington makes the next payment, we can again make an effort on Frank Redd. I have also written this to Bro. Will. I feel anxious to hear that they all are well & strong again at your Pa’s. There has been so much sickness there, & for so long a time. You generally only mention in your letters that Mr. Harris has been down to my house, & rarely say more. Tell me, whenever you can, what he thinks of the crops, & how the hogs, sheep, horses & cattle are getting on. Remind him to trim up my little orchard of last years planting, & to have the young trees in the yard watered if it gets too dry for them. Now is the time for him to try to get a stock of hogs on hand for next years killing. I think I will try to [write?] to some of the girls to- morrow. If the turf I laid in our burying- ground at Shiloh should need it, it will be very easy for Stephen with the cart & two or three barrels to give it a good watering. [ ? ] or Mr. Harris may superintend. Much love to all. Dear Precious, think of me & [ ? ] me, kisses for little Minnie. God bless you all

Yr devoted husband - N.V.W.