I am not back on duty yet and I dont think it likely I shall be at present for I rather think the Jonndice is coming on. though an unpleasant it is not at all a dangerous disease. I came down here the seventh of this month as you will see by my diary. I have a very good place. I can look out and just a few steps off I can see the boats passing backward and forward. I expect I have considerable mail up to the Regt. for I have rec'd none since when I was writing before and they (my letters) were mostly dated about the 28th of Aug. I have no news particular to write. There are many things here that I should like to tell you about but I dont like to write them. I am learning every day and some

of the things that I learn will be of value to me if I live to put them in practice. I feel in a hurry to hear from home but my mail will be uncertain now until I go back to the Regt. and as you wrote that there was talk of our coming home for a little while so there is considerable talk of it here. but I hardly know what to think about it. I hope and am inclined to believe that we shall go. I expect that I have seen decidedly the greater part of my fighting if nothing unfavorable turns up. I am more sanguine than ever that the war is near its close and I dont expect to fight any more this fall certainly if we go home. I hear that the recruits are coming in very fast and that they are going to the front by thousands. They ought to for the boys that have been through the campaign are playing out pretty fast, and they need some to take

their places. I have pictured to myself that dear old home many times within a few days. I fancy myself talking with those I love and feasting on the things I love. I "spake nary a word" about my living when I was out before but as you now know that I lived short before and as you expect I do this time I dont but I might just as well tell you that I very often think of the good things to eat and that I expect to have when once more happy at home with all the sweetness of peace through our country. About it being selfish to take more interest in one soldier in the 9th Corps than all the rest. I should feel very sad if it were other wise. I dont think that you would like for me to feel as much interest in other families, say the western families as I do in the dear circle that gather around the old hearth stone in

that distant home. It is a comfort to feel that one has the love of some true hearts that will not forget one in a time of distress or suffering or poverty or any of the ills of life. I do love to think that my own dear family are of that stamp. I shall try to live a useful life if I live any at all. I cannot believe that it was wrong for me to come here if it had been I dont think God would have protected me in such perilous places and so frequently as He has If I die all I wish to know is that I did not do wrong and I believe it will be all right with me any way. But I am going to come home I believe and live a good life. Give my love to all my friends. Continue to direct my letters to the Regt. until I write differently. Hoping soon to hear from you "by word of mouth" I remain as ever your aff. son

John

I feel quite as well today as I have for some time