1863 May 6
Thunderbolt Battery
May 6, 1863
Mrs. Nancy J. Harden
My dear companion!
It gives me pleasure to seat myself to drop you a few lines which will inform you that I am well as common this morning, hoping these lines may reach and find you all well and doing well.
I have nothing of importance to write you that will interest you, only we have stirring news from the fights up the country which is reported here as brilliant victories on our side.
We also hear that Stonewall Jackson got his arm shot off. If that be so, it is bad, but no worse for him than a private.
All of our brigade but our regiment is now leaving for Jackson, Mississippi. I think they are going to get in to business there very soon. When they are all gone, there will not be more than two thousand troops here at Savannah. So if the Yankees come here, then we will be in a bad fix, but I do not think they will come.
As soon as we all get straight, I think we will get furloughs to come home. I still think I will get home some time in June and maybe sooner. There is nothing that would give me more pleasure than to spend ten or twelve days at home, or longer, if I could get the chance.
We have not drawn any money yet, and they say we will not in two months longer. If not, I will not have money to bring me home. I want you to send me some by Powell Daniel, if he comes, if you do not get a chance sooner. I have refused to take that rice because we have not drawn any money. I am saving some along which I will bring when I come.
We have some rain here and the air is rather cool here now. The weather is very changeable indeed.
One man got a furlough and has started home since I commenced writing. He will be gone ten days.
Mrs. Spencer will start home on Saturday and I will send this by her.
We have a heap of duty to do at this time and some of it very heavy. We have to guard the batteries here, and picket on Whitmarsh Island and on the river and at a salt works, and throw up breast works. They send one company at a time to Whitmarsh and they stay a week there and then come home. Our company will be there next week I reckon.
I told our officers that I had an interest in three crops of wheat: Pa’s, the old man Seab’s, and John Pots’.
I think the chance is good for me to come home. I want you to kill a fried chicken, put the big pot in the little one and boil ‘em, and make some soup, and milk the old hen and churn, etc., etc. You may guess that I am about out of sorts.
So I will stop until tomorrow, and then I will finish.
May 8, 1863
Dear Jane,
I will finish today writing.
I am very sick this morning. I was taken yesterday evening with sickness at the stomach and I had some throwing up last night and felt somewhat like it this morning. I will go to the hospital today if I do not get better. I am very chilly today, but I think I will get better soon. I am quite sick this morning, but I am able to write. I will write again in a few days if I do not get better.
I am well.