1864 Feb 26
Fort McAllister
February 26, 1864
Dear Jane,
I write that you may know that I am well as common and hope you all are, too.
I received your kind letter yesterday and was glad to hear from you, but sorry to learn that you had cold, and that your eyes were about to get sore, and that you was without shoes. I cannot tell what you will do. I know you can’t well do without shoes. I think the shoemakers ought to go barefoot awhile and then they might do better.
You said your ears and face burned and that you thought I was thinking about you. I reckon I was, for I think of you all the time when I am awake, and when I sleep, I dream of you.
I am sorry Jim Harris has to leave, but I hope they will do him justice when he gets to Macon.
We don’t hear no talk of peace here, nothing but war! War!
We had some very bad weather here last week, some snow, very cold and windy, but it has moderated some now and the weather is nice.
I have no news of the war, only we, they say, we whipped the Yanks nicely in Florida and in Whitmarsh. We are expecting an attack here, but I hope it will not be. I do not want to go were men get shot all to pieces.
I hope I will get the long furlough of which you dreamed, but the chance is bad. There is so many ahead of me. I can’t get a chance before summer, if then. I wish I could be there to see Ed and Tom Cook and all the rest. If Ed gets his discharge, tell him to come and I’ll be glad, but if the Yanks don’t leave here you had better not come, but if we get back to Thunderbolt and all is quiet, I will be very proud to see you come, too.
If I been there on your birthday, you would not have spun a half cut. If you are twenty-one, you are old enough to be free by law, but I hope we will all be free before you see another birthday.
I do not know what else to write. I wrote a letter to Carry the other day. I reckon she has got it now.
Kiss Mollie and all the girls for me and I will pay you back with interest when I get home.
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[If you have a secret to tell me I am ready to hear it you know.]
So I will close.
Yours, etc.
William H. Harden
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