Go If You Think It Your Duty: A Minnesota Couple's Civil War Letters

By Andrea R. Foroughi

During the American Civil War, James Madison Bowler and Elizabeth Caleff Bowler courted, married, became parents, and bought a farm. They attended dances, talked politics, and confided their deepest fears. Because of the war, however, they experienced all of these events separately, sharing them through hundreds of letters from 1861 to 1865 while Madison served in the third Minnesota Volunteer regiment and Lizzie stayed in Nininger, Minnesota. In four years, they spent only twelve weeks under the same roof. These poignant letters provided them a space to voice their fear for and frustration with each other, and they now provide readers with a window into one couple's Civil War.

"Go If You Think It Your Duty isn't the Civil War history of textbooks or lecture halls. It's the kind we seldom see—the kind tucked away in forgotten, dusty packets of letters in forgotten trunks in attic corners. The letters here are less about the war than about the hopes and concerns of a man who fought it and his wife waiting back home." —The Associated Press

• Language: English
• Publisher: Minnesota Historical Society Press
• Release date: Aug 1, 2009
• ISBN: 9780873516716

Andrea R. Foroughi

Andrea R. Foroughi is an associate professor of history at New York’s Union College, specializing in women’s history, the Civil War, and Native American History.

Book preview

1-My Dear...Yours Ever

My Dear...Yours Ever

APRIL 1861 TO MARCH 1862

One year after their first exchange of letters, Madison again penned a letter to Lizzie from St. Anthony. Although he saw old friends and visited his favorite spots, he was not in St. Anthony for pleasure. He wrote to tell Lizzie that he had enlisted in the St. Anthony Zouaves, one of Minnesota’s eight volunteer militia companies before the war, which then collectively formed the Minnesota Regiment on April 30, 1861, in response to President Lincoln’s request for three-month volunteers from each state.¹ Numbering among the first seventy-five thousand volunteers, they were only the beginning of an army that would enlist over one million soldiers in the next four years. In early May, Secretary of War Simon Cameron ordered regiments still in their home states to remuster and enlist for three years, rather than the three-month term they had agreed to in April.² On May 11, 1861, the Minnesota State News printed the names of soldiers joining the Minneapolis and St. Anthony companies, noting: Our readers will all be interested to see who were the first to respond to the call of their country. Cut out the list and keep it for future reference.³ Apparently, Madison decided not to enlist for the three-year term with the First Minnesota Volunteer Regiment. In September, however, he joined the Third Minnesota Volunteer Regiment, Company F, receiving the rank of corporal in December 1861.

Although Madison does not explain why he enlisted in September, he was likely influenced by organizing activities under way in the Hastings-Nininger

area. Encouraging community members to enlist together was a common strategy, thus creating companies composed of neighbors, friends, and family.⁴ By September 26, 1861, sixty men had been recruited in Hastings for a new regiment. On October 17 the Hastings Independent reported that the Hastings Company now at Fort Snelling was not able to be Company A in the Third Regiment, a position it was most anxious to occupy, because A companies came first in drill and parade and showed the most patriotic devotion by being the first to enroll in a regiment. Instead, it became Company F and left for Kentucky, stopping in Hastings on November 15. The paper boasted, Many of the best men of this city and vicinity, compose the gallant company that went from here.⁵ Company F drew heavily from Dakota County. Approximately 70 percent of its 92 initial members hailed from the county; of those, 44 soldiers were from Hastings. Estimates from the end of the war suggest that Nininger sent 58 of its 240 men into Civil War units; 12 were in Company F alone, with Nininger men enlisting a few at a time in other companies and regiments.⁶ Therefore, Lizzie knew many of Madison’s companions, and so the couple’s letters were filled with news about mutual acquaintances’ activities and antics. For Madison everything seemed new and worthy of detailed description and explanation, as his letters between April 1861 and December 1861 reveal. For Lizzie there were no new surroundings, no new activities, only the regular pattern of small-town community life in which nothing transpired lately worth writing.

Lizzie and Madison began the new year of 1862 separated by hundreds of miles but connected by letters about mutual acquaintances in both Nininger and the Third Minnesota and the conduct of the war more generally. Much of their correspondence from January through March 1862 is filled with news about who was gallanting or escorting whom and who was or was not adapting to army life. The couple felt that the gossip they shared could be damaging, and they worried that others might see what they wrote. From experience they knew that rumors about townspeople and soldiers spread rapidly, both at home and in the military camp.⁷ In addition to keeping track of local news, both Madison and Lizzie followed the course of the war avidly, but they responded to it differently. As news of battles reached Lizzie, she worried that Madison would be in the fray and wondered at his eagerness to put his life in danger. Madison, like many of his comrades, longed, however, for the excitement of battle.⁸

*   *   *

St. Anthony, April 27, 1861

My Dear Lizzie:

You must forgive me for not having written to you sooner than this, for I did not wish to write until you might know where to direct your letters to me. Though I promised you that I should try to keep from doing anything to make you feel bad, yet I have volunteered my services to my country as a private in the ranks of the Min. Volunteer Militia. So many of my friends are going and the cause is so just, that I cannot resist going with them and for the cause.⁹

I belong to company A of the 17th Regiment of Min. Vol. Mil. This company is known as the St. Anthony Zouaves, and numbers about 90 men, rank and file. The whole Regiment consists of ten companies, or nearly a thousand men. In my company are four or five lawyers, as many doctors, several school teachers, a goodly number of merchants, and one editor (my friend W. A. Croffut) besides four printers and other respectable persons ad infinitum. We are armed with the long-range, sword-bayonet, [jminnie rifle. The several companies composing the Regiment will rendevous at Fort Snelling the first of next week and go into quarters there until the 20th of May, when we shall be called into actual service if the war continues. Meantime I shall try to get off long enough to visit you, probably in two or three weeks from now.¹⁰

Lizzie, I shall not affect to believe that you do not feel bad to have me go away, for I know you do. I feel bad myself. I deplore the condition of our country that calls upon us to fight for it. But somebody must go; and who can go better than young men like myself, without business and with family to demand my attention.

The heart which prompted the words, Go, if you think it your duty, has increased claims to my confidence and my love. I have thought of those words a thousand times since you spoke them.

O, Lizzie, you don’t know how often I think of you and how much I wish to be with you again. I did not leave for St. Anthony until the Sunday after leaving Nininger, and I was in Hastings on the Saturday preceding. You can have no adequate idea how I felt while so near you without ever going to see you....

G. B. M. is as venomous as ever, I had [a] considerable talk with him. Look out for him, for his slanderous tongue is going in every direction, and nothing is too bad for him to say. Pardon me for not writing a better letter, and give my love to Aunt Sarah and your father, mother, and sisters. Write to me immediately, and direct to St. Paul, for I can get it there before any where else.

Yours ever,

Madison

Excuse mistakes, for I have not time to look this over. Mad.

Fort Snelling, May 2, 1861, 1½ o’clock, P.M.

[To Lizzie:]

Your kind letter of Apr. 24 was [received] this morning just after my being relieved from Guard duty which I had been engaged in for 24 hours. It is wholly unnecessary for me to tell you that it was a welcome message to me. I wrote to you last Saturday when I was in St. Anthony, and directed you to send your communications to St. Paul.

You say that you are very lonely. I do not doubt it, judging from my own experience. Although the greater part of my time is taken up in military matters, yet think not that I do not find time for serious thoughts. Your letter was seasoned with a sympathetic strain which brought the tears to my eyes, but not to remain there long for I had scarcely finished reading it when the order was given to Fall into the ranks and, though my having been on guard exempted me from drilling, yet I fell in and went through [the re]gular forenoon company drill.

This afternoon we are to have a Regimental drill, but as I am not obliged to go, I will look on at leisure. A regimental drill is a drill of the whole Regiment together (10 companies under our Colonel (Ex Gov. Gorman) and his Staff, assisted by Capt A. D. Nelson, U.S.A. You must pardon me for introducing so much of the military proceedings into my letters, for I have nothing else to write about. There are many interesting incidents connect[ed wi]th my few days of military experience, but I have not time to relate them all.

Last Monday morning our Company met at their Armory, and about 10 o’clock marched to Minneapolis under the escort of the Home guards and an immense throng of men, women, and children, many of whom were weeping as they were about parting, perhaps forever with sons, fathers, or brothers. The scene was quite affecting. At Minneapolis we were bid farewell in speech by the Mayor of St. Anthony, after which we marched a short distance to wagons waiting to take us to the Fort. We call[ed] at Minnehaha on our way, and arrived at the Fort at noon, and were mustered and sworn in after a dinner of beef, potatoes, bread, &c., in the presence of the Governor, Adjutant Gen., and a large concourse of people.¹¹

After being mustered in we were allowed our freedom for [the] day, so I took a stroll about the Fort which seemed quite familiar to me, as I had often been there before. About 4 o’clock it was announced that the Stillwater Guards were opposite the Fort; and pretty soon the Ferryboat was seen bringing them over. As the Guards filed into the Fort, I watched them closely, expecting to recognize some old acquaintance. But I recognized none, though I thought one [wi]th a broad brimmed hat looked like Pray. He soon disappeared from my scrutiny, into the crowd. I took another close look and gave it up, when a few moments afterward as I was standing close by the rear of the Guards, chatting with a friend, who should extend his hand from the ranks and give me a shake, but R. N. Pray—the identical man I had been looking after. It gave me a thrill of joy which has not been at all decreased by frequent association with him ever since.¹²

5 o’clock P.M. I have just returned from witnessing the Regimental drill which occurred just outside the Fort. Pray and I watched it from the top of the Round Bastion—it was a splendid sight. When the companies marched out I went out too, and looked over the Stillwater Guards for Pray; but he was not there, so I went to their quarters which are outside the [fort], and there I found him—as good luck would have it—and we repaired to the top of the Bastion, as I said before. I have been with him ever since until, just now, when I left him at the gate that leads to his quarters. Just as I write he comes in again, and says that he will write to Nininger in a day or two. The Building in which I am quartered was once an Episcopalian Chapel for the Fort. It is inside near the main Gateway.

Everything but the Pulpit has been removed; and I am now in that (the Pulpit) writing. It is covered with velvet and is a firstrate p[lace] to write. Pray wishes me to say, that they have left his company outside the Fort because they are so much more honest than the rest of us.

Oh, this is a beautiful place—the Mississippi on one side, and the Minnesota on the other, while the green prairie extends back for miles. Pray and I got a permit from the Colonel and visited Minnehaha, just two miles distant. It was Pray’s first visit to that place.

W. a. Croffut, former Editor of the St Anthony News, has just come in from St. Anthony and has presented me with a good bundle of papers among which are four New York Ledgers. I shall send you one if I can find any way of doing up one.¹³

You wish to know if I have found any flowers. I have found a few very pretty ones; but there is one—always a flower to me—which I should prefer above all, but which I am not permitted to see now. But I have a picture of it—a great consolation to me. If you knew how my friends complement that picture, you would think yourself handsome. But I must close, for supper is ready. There [are] a thousand things which I want to say, but I can’t think of them now....

Truly yours till death.

J. Madison.

{written along the crease of the letter} You must forgive Mad for not making a more extended notice of your good letter. I acknowledge that I have been rather egotistical in this letter, but you will forgive me....

{on top margin of the front page} Direct your next letter to J. M. Bowler, Private in the St. Anthony Zouave, Fort Snelling, Minn. Give my love to friends.

Nininger, May 11, 1861

Saturday evening

My Dearest Friend,

I recd your kind letter of the 2nd of May. Was so glad to hear you was well and seemed to be in good spirits. You dont know how much pleasure it gives me to know that you are happy. Sometimes when I think of the way you are living at night after drilling all day you must be tired enough to be on a good bed instead of lying on the floor. Perhaps I think more about it then you do for I have not much else to take up my mind. Sometimes when I think of being parted from you perhaps for ever it sends a thrill of sorrow through my heart that is not very easy subdued.

I will tell you what we have been doing this week. On Monday Percy got stuff to make a flag.¹⁴ On Tuesday we got it cut and partly made. On Thursday we finished it. It looks very nice. Is 19 feet long and 11 wide. The staff is 90 feet long, they put it up today, about half way between Reeds and Aunt Sarahs. We had a real nice time. Had speeches by Messrs A.M. Hayes, Rich, Stebbins, Jones, and another gentleman whose name I do not know. There was about 100 persons in all.¹⁵ happened to look up. The first persons my eyes fell upon was Isah Mudgett and Johnson Truax. I spoke to Isah, but I did not get a chance to speak to Johnson. He told Amon that you was well and seemed to be enjoying yourself.¹⁶ There is no news to write. Every thing is going on in the same old way....

I want you to come down before you get away if it is a possible thing. I cant bear the idea of you going away without seeing you first. When you write I want you to tell whether you think this war will continue for this reason, you hear and know more about it then we do in Nininger. For anyone might almost as well be out of the world.... There is not hardly anyone moving around Nininger. In some days we dont hardly see a person. Most all the men are away farming....

Good bye I remain yours as ever

Lizzie

Fort Snelling, Sept, 30, 1861 Sunday morning 11 o’clock A.M.

My Dear Lizzie:

...We started from Hastings Thursday evening at 7 o’clock on the Frank Steele, and arrived at St. Paul at 12 o’clock, where our Company had to unload the Boat in consequence of her crew leaving on a strike for higher wages.¹⁷

As is usual on this River, the State Rooms were all full, but as I knew how easy Steamboat-Clerks could lie, I took a look, to satisfy myself, and found one unlocked and unoccupied, so I just took quiet possession, and slept till about 10 o’clock, when I went into the Cabin much to the surprise of the boys who had all been wandering...and sleeping on the floor and anywhere else. Upon my return to my room I found [occu]pied by Knight, Pettibone, Woodruf, and Pan[chot], who, of course, filled all the berths, so I took a mattress from one Berth, locked the door, and slept on the floor until one of them gave up his place to me. About 2 oclock Eugene Stone routed my bedfellow out and turned in with me and slept until we were long on our way from St Paul to the Fort, where we arrived at 7 o’clock on Friday morning. At 5 P.M. we were mustered in...and Eugene and I left for St. An[thony,] remained till last night. Eugene [and I slept] in the same Berth.¹⁸

I am at present acting orderly Sergeant. No regular non-commissioned officers can be appointed until the Company is full.¹⁹ We are quartered within the Fort, while the 2nd Reg’t and a part of the 4th are outside, the 2nd in tents and doing their own "housework."²⁰

I find many friends here whom I did not expect to meet. My friend Hunt is in the Minneapolis Company for our Reg’t—the 3d.²¹ Eugene and I had our pictures taken at St. Anthony. I will send you mine. It is not a good one, and you shall have a better one if I can get it....

You[rs ever]

Ma[dison]

Nininger, Oct 2nd, 1861

My Dearest Friend,

I recd your letter yesterday and also your picture, for which receive my sincere thanks. I have been anxious to hear from you. I was afraid you would get a severe cold the day you left here walking in the rain, didn’t think when you left as you should of taken Fathers big coat. You had been gone but a short time that day when a presbyterian minister, his wife, and two daughters were on their way from Lake City to St Paul. They were caught in the rain and [our] house being the nearest house they all came here and stayed until the next morning. I would not of cared if they had all been in Guinea. I didn’t feel much like entertaining company after parting with the one whom I love above all other earthly beings perhaps for ever. If it wasnt for hope I think I should despair, but the hope that we shall some future day have a home where we can add to each others happiness makes me [feel] that I can bear it patiently.

Ma has gone to Hampton to attend Sally Hawkins’ funeral. She died on Sunday morning, poor thing. I hope she is better off. Do is keeping house for Aunt Sarah and Kate has not returned from Mr. Basset’s yet so you see Father and I are left to keep house. I dont know when they will get back again, for it is raining real hard, and every thing wears a gloomy aspect.²²

You spoke of meeting many old friends. I am glad to hear it. I hope you will enjoy yourself as you can. You spoke of your picture not being good. I think it is very good, indeed. When you write if there is any thing you need that I can make for you, I want you to let me know if I can get my plans to work. I am coming up to the Fort and will have a chance to take you any thing if you will let me know....

Did you get your snuffs? We sent it by Obet Russel to Hastings. Give my love to Eugene and all other friends.²³

I remain your loving Lizzie

{in margin} Excuse all mistakes. Burn when rid.

Fort Snelling, Thursday, Oct. 10, 1861

My Dear Lizzie:

We arrived here at one o’clock last night. I found Piercy in my bed. There is some difficulty about the Cavalry being received. Ramsey telegraphs that he will not accept them until the 3d and 4th Regiments are full.²⁴ They in turn threaten to go to Wisconsin and join one of her Regiments....

We started on the Northern Belle from Hastings yesterday at 4 P.M. and arrived at St Paul at half past eight. The boys were in favor of going to the Fort on foot; but I went to the Clerk and obtained six state rooms which contained us all. We had just got asleep when some of the boys who had too much liquor took it into their heads to go to the Fort. They went to the Livery Stable procured a couple of carriages and teams, and routed out all the boys but Woodworth and me. Finally they found us and we concluded to go [with them as] we are....

Yours in haste.

JM Bowler

Fort Snelling, Oct. 19, 1861

My Dear Lizzie:

...I came up Thursday night on the Frank Steele, and had the satisfaction of taking a couple of recruits with me. Our company has seventy eight men which is just five short of the required number.

Piercy has joined the Dutch Cavalry, and will probably be a Sergeant.²⁵ There is so much confusion here that I cannot think of anything to write. Dakin has lost one of his gloves, and has been over to Capt Butler, who is in command of our Regiment, with his complaint. He is now telling the boys what to depend on if his glove is not forthcoming in five minutes. They are all making fun with him. Dr. Pride is stopping up the cracks in his Saxhorn with my Fir Balsam. Every now and then he toots up with a deafening sound. I am lying flat on my bed with my writing consarns before me. Hold on a minute. Cressy wants my tactics, and Dr. Pride is pulling my coattail for something.²⁶ Hunt and Bowler are going to St. Anthony today to see the folks and get some peaches.

You must excuse me for writing this with pencil for I am in a hurry. Please give my love to all and pardon me for not writing you a better letter. I will try to do better another time.

Yours ever, Madison.

Nininger, Minn, Oct. 29, 1861

Saturday evening

Dear Madison

I have just arrived at home after bidding you a long farewell and perhaps forever. Pray stayed until he got his tea and then he went to Hastings. You do not know how I do feel this night. It seems to me that I cannot bear to have you go away without seeing you again. I do wish you could come down. You spoke of going to see Donnelly. If I were you I would go immediately. If he can do anything to assist you I think he will do it.²⁷ If any one dont look out for themselvs no one will look out for themself. Is all they think of. I hope it will all come out right, and, all hard feelings will cease to be. I know it makes it unpleasant for you, and I persume for them too.

We got home about eight o’clock. Had a very pleasant drive. It wasnt near as cold as it was in the morning. I didnt enjoy it very much for I was thinking of him whom I had left behind whose countenance is impressed on my memory never to be forgotten. When thou art many miles distant I can think of thee and see thee as when I last saw thee. If it is the will of Providence that we shall ever meet again, may we strive to watch over our selves that while absent from each other we may be better fitted to begin a life of troubles together, with a better knowledge of what is our duty both to God and Man. If it is that we shall never meet again on this earth, I hope that we shall be of that happy number that will go where there is no more partings.... Excuse this writing for my pen is very bad. Burnit when you reads it....

Yours ever Lizzie S. C....

Dont get angry with me for writing you such a mess of stuff and dont play cards anymore....²⁸

Nininger, Nov 2nd, 1861

Saturday Evening

Dearest loved one

I recd the letter you wrote me last Monday and was glad to hear from you. I think by the tenor of your letter that you are getting low spirited. I am sorry that I let my feeling overcome me so that day that I was at the Fort if it made you feel sad, but you never can imagine my feelings. I bade you rather a cool good bye. But the heart felt most when the lips moved not. At that moment when I looked on you, the one in whom all my happiness depends in this earth, and thought it might perhaps be the last time we should ever meet, my heart was sorrow stricken.

I am trying to make up my mind to submit to what ever may come and hope for the best. I suppose all these things are given us to bear to make us mindful that we should have a higher aim than the things of this wicked world.

You ask to be forgiven if you have ever done anything unkind. There is nothing to forgive. You have always been to me all and more then I expected, you have shown acts of kindness both to me and others that you shall be remembered for as long as earth gives me a home. I hope that some day I shall be able to return them by kind word and loving acts. When you go down river, I want, if it is not too much trouble, you to keep a journal so that when you come back if you ever should, while trotting your grandchildren on your knee, you can look over the time when you were a soldier. I don’t want you to have the blues any more. If you do what you think is your duty both to God and man, you can do no more. When you write, tell me how your officers conduct themselves, if they are good with you....

I will send you your clothes the first chance I can get if there is any one comes down from the Fort. I wish you would ask them to call here and get them. I have inquired but I can find no one going up there at present. Will send them as soon as I can. When you get them you open them and in the middle of the bundle you will find a sort of a needle book. I thought it would be handy for you to carry any little things such as buttons thread, etc.

...I believe you are not going as soon as you expected. I want you to write to me often. You do not know how anxious I will be all the time after you go down river.... Burn this when recd.

Yours ever Lizzie

Come down if you can any way...

Nininger, Dec 6th, 1861

Friday evening

My Dear Madison

While sitting here in Aunt Sarah’s old kitchen my thoughts wonder away to my absent friend and loved one. I have just been thinking of the days that are past and gone when you used to sit where I am sitting now in this corner behind the stove and had many a socibal chat.

Shal you ever return to bless me with your smile is my thoughts by day and night. If you only knew my feelings when I get in some lone corner and sit down to think, and hear the wind whistle through the cracks, and the snow blow round the corners. Minnie says that at such times she thinks of the poor soldiers.²⁹ She is not the only one.

Kate recd a letter from you on Monday. In it you spoke of being treated with so much kindness. I am so glad you meet with friends away there among strangers.

If you could only stay there, but very likely before this reaches you, you will be many miles from there.

Last evening there was a very large party at the hotel. I went down with Wilson and Emily Hanna and stayed nearly an hour. There was a very large company....³⁰ I left them all and went back to Aunt Sarah’s, where I have been staying for the last three days. Went to bed and had one good cry, for which I felt a good deal the better.

I see by a letter in the Press, written by one of your brother soldiers and signed Hurbert while going throug[h] Indiana, some of the ladies showed themselves very patriotic by kissing the soldiers. Was you one of the lucky ones? I want you to march and not be hunting up a little Italian girl for yourself down there.

I saw a letter that Piercy wrote to Mr Wm Valkenburg. By what he wrote about himself his Capt and the rest of the company, if he is not hooped soon I think he will burst. He thinks he will be appointed Sergant Major.³¹

Old Mrs Stone is very anxious to have Eugene write. She has not recd a word from him since he went away....

Saturday Morning

I now resume my pen to finish this incomplete epistle.

We are having beautiful weather now. There has been two or three soft days. The snow has mostly all disappeared. How do you get your washing done? You mind or take care of yourself and if you get sick be sure and let me know.

School begins next week. The teacher is an old gentleman from Popular Grove by the name of Carpenter. So you need not be the least afraid of my going off with the school teacher as you used to say sometimes.

...Remember me to all acquaintances. I must close hoping this will find you well and enjoying yourself.

I remain yours ever

Lizzie S. Caleff...

Camp Dana, Dec. 18, 1861

My Dear Lizzie:

I received a letter from you a few days ago—the first letter I have received since I came to Kentucky.... I had almost begun to think that you had forgotten me; but your good letter dispelled the thought again, and I knew that Lizzie still remembered me.

You speak of being lonely and of the pleasant hours we have spent together. I know well how to sympathise with you, for I am lonely at times and often think of home, and the loved ones behind, especially of her who is seldom out of my thoughts. I can look back and see everything just as it was when I was there. Those old familiar haunts and scenes often float across my vision with all the distinctness of real life. It gives me a feeling of sadness when I think over the old times that have gone by never to return. I recollect that last Christmas when we were together on Rosehill we were speculating as to where we should be and what we should be doing by another Christmas. I little thought at that time that we should be so far separated, and that I should be a soldier, in arms for my country. But little can we tell what a year may bring forth.

...I think there will be no danger of your gallanting with that old Schoolmaster. I learn from some of those who know him that he is of little consequence any way. I hope you will go to school and learn all you can, though I am of the opinion that there is not much to be learned from him.

Our company marches tomorrow to Sheppardsville to relieve Co. K from guard duty at that place. We shall stay seven days and return to this place again. Day before yesterday 24 men three corporals one Sergeant and Lieut. of Co F were on picket duty at Bardstown Junction, three miles from here. A part of their duty was to guard a Rail Road Bridge and Water-Tank. In the night an attempt was made to burn it by three men who were discovered creeping up by Frank Colby and Page Howe. Frank attempted to fire, but his gun wouldn’t go. The men ran and Howe fired after them but without effect. A little fellow by the name of Allen, some ways off, fired too. By this time Frank fired, dropped his gun, and he and Howe drew their Revolvers and rushed into the woods after them, but returned after firing three or four shots without any apparent effect. We have had several little skirmishes like the above but have had no serious result. We have taken some five or six prisoners on such occasions and sent them to Gen Buell in Louisville.³²

We are having very pleasant weather, and the sick are fast recovering, so that we have but nine or ten now in our company, who are unfit for duty.³³

I am one of the Corporals of the Color Guard, a place for which Capt Preston recommended me to the Col. or I should never have accepted the office of Corporal.³⁴ Eugene Stone tells me that he has written to his mother several times, but received no answer. Eugene is one of the most daring soldiers in the Reg’t, and is liked by all his comrades.

Several divisions of the Army of K’y are far in advance of our position and lively times are soon expected. We should have been with them but for the poor quality of our firearms. The[y] will soon be exchanged when we hope to face the enemy with the rest.... You want to know how we get our washing done. Many of the soldiers do their own washing, but I have thus far hired mine done. There are plenty of women who are glad to do it for five cents apiece. You want to know if I got a kiss from any of those ladies. I did not, though I might have done so if I had stepped forward, but I kept back as I did not feel much like kissing any one I saw. The Press’ correspondent is my friend Hunt.

I have not written a letter to any Newspaper since I left Minn. It is too much work for little pay. You need have no fears of my getting astray with the Italian or any other girls. Wenches are thick as fleas, but not to my taste.

Now, Lizzie, I want you to write to me often, whether you hear from me or not, for you have more time and better opportunities for writing letters than I have. I shall, perhaps, when I get time, write you a long lecture on the evils of going to Balls and flirting with young men in the absence of your poor soldier