57th North Carolina Infantry

Item CON-6794

Description

Original Civil War Confederate soldier's letter - 4 pages and war dated. Envelope with soldier's name, regiment and Richmond cancelation is included.

Camp Near Fredericksburg
March 29th 1863

Dear and affectionate wife and lovely Eli and mother and sisters,

I seat myself this holy Sabbath evening in answer to your kind and welcome letter which I received March 29th dated March 27th. And was truly glad to hear from you once more. And to hear that you were all tolerably well at that time. and I will now state to you that I am now in better health than I have been since I came out. And hope when these lines reach you they may find you all well and living contented together. And enjoying yourselves very well under the present trials and difficulties. I am also glad to hear that you received the letters and that many that I sent with R. R. Honeycutt. And I reckon you have your logs sold by this time. And I am glad to hear that Elon has the oats sold in the orchard. And I am also glad to hear that David T. is going to make our return of tax. And that he is going to pay Aunt Colby what I owe her with the 17 dollars. And if he has enough of my money left, I want him to try and settle with Doctor Laughy. If he is at home yet or if he can find out who settles his accounts if he thinks he will be safe in doing so. For I think Dr. Fink will not care. You also said that you were willing to sell that land down yonder and that Uncle Aaron would sell it for us. I am willing for to do so for it will normally bring more than ever hereafter. And now I think that by so doing and gathering a little money along, I can maybe get my debts paid. The war will end which I hope may be before long. You also said that you received 19 or 20 letters from me now. I want you to number your letters by fingers on the left hand at the top and I will do so too. And then we can tell what number is missing of our letters if we don’t get them. Now I would like to hear from you whether you have got another letter yet from me. I very well know that you can’t get a crop planted and rain with without one and I don’t want you to wait long as the money might get counterfeit and then that much would be lost which is too much for a poor man to lose.

I have nothing of importance to write at this time. Only they are still expecting a battle at this place. I heard this morning that Jackson had his bridges at the depot ready for to take them to the river for to cross on to go over and fight the Yankees. But I hope it ain’t so and that there won’t be another battle fought and that we may all return home ere long now.

You want to know how P.J.O. is he getting a great deal better again. There is right smart sickness in our company. Now J.E.O. is very sick and has been about two weeks. He just now told me and said that he could not live much longer if he didn’t get better soon. Which I think myself for he is very bad. He has the pneumonia I think.

Now a few words to you my dear Eli. Your dear Paw is so glad to hear how fast you are getting along in spelling and oh how glad I would be to be at home and hear you learn. Now I want you to be a good boy as long as you live and then everybody will love you.

I must now close my letter by asking you to write soon and often and I will do the same. So farewell till I hear from you again.

Written by P.J.O. to his affectionate wife M.I.O. and lovely Eli and mother and sisters. Please number your letters.