[This letter is undated but accompanied letter of Sept. 4, 1862]

Dear Friend Susan,

       I received the letter you wrote to me with the greatest of plesure. I was very glad to hear from home and from my nabors.

       We are now on Arlington hights near Washington. lt is very likely we will stay here and recrute up again. We have had some very hard fighting on the same old battleground at Bulls run. The rebels flanked us and we had to fall back but we whiped them in frunt and was driving them when the order came to fall back. I was in 3 different battles there. We drove them every time tho there. But Mcdowel let them flank us so we had to fall back to the rear. It is very hard work for me to write now for I am tired and nervis and have to write on my knees and set on the ground. So I will clos. Write soon.

From your Friend,
Cordello Collins

To Susan English,

With my pen I write the same
Cordello Collins is my name
The pen is blind and couldent see
So blaime the pen and dont blame me.

Source: Reinsberg, Mark " A Bucktail Voice: Civil War Correspondence of Cordello Collins." Western Pennsylvania Historical Magazine 48 (1965)

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