Dear Father And Mother

     I will answer your letter of the 5th I was very glad to here from you. I always like to git a letter from home I would rather have a letter from home than any other place.
     I am as well as common I hope this will find you the same.. Their is some of the boys that is not very well their is so many that cannot see after night and some that will not do any thing with out they have to.. some goes to the docter that looks as well as any

of us. I donot say they play off but it looks that way a little a man will look well enough one day and likely will be ded the next. a man doesnot show it here like he does at home..
     The folks are leaving Atlanta as fast as they can their was a 1.000.. left one day the most of them are going north I would rather they would go south it would eat them out the quicker and that will bring them to terms the fastest of any thing els..
This is sunday and raining it is gitting muddy and every place is like a hogpen.. we have to poot on lots of stile when we go on picket the orders is to walk a bout and not set down and carry our gun at a right sholdier shift.. I think that is going in

steap.. when the rebs was shooting at us we could do as we wanted to.. I am here yet to read every letter you write.. I have bin very lucky so far and I hope it will hold out 11 months longer I think then I will have my name taken off of U.S. papers for a while..
     I got that paper and invellops and the letter with the stamps in it all right their was 8.. stamps... I thought that Sap and Forgy would not want to sell out so bad with out they could git more than the land was worth I donot suppose any one would cry if they should sell out John is very uneasy a bout it he wrote home as soon as I told him a bout it.. he says if they can not make a living their they had better quit.. I think so my self if they will come down and look a round

here they will go home and go to work and not say an nother word.... any one would think that the country a round Atlanta would be well improved but it is not their is no little town in Ills.. but what is fixed as well.. a roun the out side of town it is brush and every thing left to go to smash as it will now since the war has broke out in the senter of town it has bin very nice.. their is a very large depo house and every thing has bin done on the right stile. I wouldnot live down here for no a mount of money their is no soil here it is clay and stone. the timber is not very good their is some nice pine here the rest is black Jack and nurly chesnut