My dear Friend

     I got a dispatch from the Judge [i.e., Turner Reavis] a few days ago in which he told me you were absent, which evidence of your better health I was rejoiced to hear. For two months or more I have been to sick & indifferent to every thing to visit or care to visit any body, but within a day or two I have shaken off much of that leaden feeling and now feel like a living man again. I am thankful for it while it lasts, & I hope it may for some time, as my last attack was of a nature to be of service, after it was over. I shall try & be very prudent.
     The Judge said Milly & Alfred should be sent as soon as possible. I hope they may come soon for Caesar complains piteously of his exhausting labours, and would be comforted perhaps by the idea of having help. His next complaint will probably be the trouble they are to him, & perhaps with better reason. He pokes along like an old man of 80, & but for my horse to which he seems truly attached, & which is really a fine creature, would I believe give up altogether. The solitude I suppose is what is really the trouble, but now that I have carpenters at work on an addition to my shanty, with whom he can

gossip occasionally, he will no doubt get along better. He gave up in toto last week. my brother [i.e., Dr. William Henry Anderson] came suddenly, and I had to get another servant, but in two days he was well. A talk with my brother about Mobile & Montgomery seemed to refresh him wonderfully.
     I believe I asked you to send Milly & A's baggage by express to be separately paid for, as they will lose any thing they had to look out for, & send receipt for express charges to Mobile or as far as you pay along with them, or their things. Did I ask you to send the fly net for horse which was in sulky box the last time I saw it. with the other articles. As to [illeg] &c for refugees use them of course I regret I did not mention allude to that item in my last. You can send my cloak too if it still hangs together, & the checked casimere on the little melodeum, & hearth rug, forgotten in my last. I hope every day to get a letter from you.
     With best regards to the Judge, Miss Lucy & Nannie Mit when you write & Willie, & all at the doctors together with Mr W & Mrs Dobbs

I am affectionately Your Friend
L H Anderson

This goes by Express, with a package I am sending to Gainesville --