10 o'clock PM
Generall Post Office
Oct 21st .62
Dear Kate,
You see by the date of this that I change my location very often. One day I am at our camp, the next at one Hospital, the next at another. Now I am at the Post Office with one corporal and ten men guarding subsistance stores and this night finds me sitting up to relieve those guards every two hours, and just as I comenced writing along came a drunken soldier and wanted to stay all night. He was afraid of the Provost guard. He had not had any super and I gave him one. It sobered him so he thought he could go on again and out he has gone.
I tell you this is a great place to see and hear what is going on I do not think there is another city in the Union that so much lisensiousness and all other eivels is carried on as this city, although there is but a very few rows. Every few minutes a guard of ten or twelve men is seen marching up and down the street, so they do not have time to get up much of a fuss before they are taken.
It is expected now that we will permanently quartered in this city for the winter but we cannot tell. For my part they could not suit me better, but we will have to go wherever we are ordered. There is a great many of the boys sick I do not know but I shall have my turn at it but I am all right as yet.
Elden Wilson is dead. He died about a week ago. We have lost 5 men, two of them from our Company. It seems rather hard for men to come way down here and be sick and die far from their friends and families but so it is.
I think a good deal of their sickness is caused by their own negligence. They eat and drink everything that comes along and do not wash their persons as often as they should. John is all right again. We hear nothing from Mart as yet. Posibly he may keep out of the way, but I think he will have to play sharp. We came down here to day expecting to stay but by some reason the rest of the men were sent back to camp, and six or eight sick ones left on my hands that could not go back to camp on foot and carry their loads, which will weigh about 40 lbs. It makes quite a load for a man to carry all day, although I stood it first rate, in fact I do not think there is a corp that stands it better than I do.
I want you should go and make Wm. W. a good long visit for me. Tell Wm. that I should like to hear from him. Tell him I have not forgoten how we used to enjoy ourselves, but perhaps he had. If he has forgoten me, I cannot help it as I know of, for I wrote to him last, and then we cannot forget him as long as life shall last, for we have one link in our chain that will remind us of our old friend Wm. I want you should go and visit all of your friends and mine so far as you can get around and I think if they want to see you, they will help you around, considering that your man, or boy I should say, was in the army.
I would like to have you go and see Asa Caufield folks if you can get there, in fact I want you should go all around wherever I would like to go if can [sic]
I wrote to you some time ago stating that I would send you some money. I send by this letter two dollars, and I will send you all that you knead as long as you stay there. I want you should get what things you knead for your self and the children, and I think perhaps that when I draw some more money, I had better send it to you and have Laura paid, then she will have it and that debt will be paid. The last of this month is pay day but we may not get any in some time.
Tell Pa that I should like to hear from him some of these days for I tell you that a letter from one of my friends is something worth getting now days. I look for a letter every day but I don't get one very often but then I have had some 18 from you and as much as a dozen from others but don't they do one some good. Well, they do. Now write me some long ones and tell all my friends to write. Give my love to all and except a large share to yourself and the babies. My sheets are both full and I must close so good buy.
1212 am Time to close
Yours, Bert
