Dear Father and Mother. I thought I would answer your letter of the 3.. I was very glad to here from you.. I am as well as common and I hope this will find you all the same. I was on picket last night it rained part of the night it is not mutch fun I can tell you. it is very rany here. their is hardly a day but what it rains it hasent bin very cold yet.. the boys are fixing up camp and the talk is that we are going to leave no one can tell

what to do whether to keepe on building or stop some say we are going to Columbia Tenn.. I hardly think we will. they keepe us fortifying all the time. their was a lot of officers around this morning looking out a place to fortify they will keepe us at it as long as we stay here we have built two forts and a line of works near a half mile long I will be glad when this kind of work stops I would rather chop wood the year round in gods country and have some thing to eat than stay here.. Brimhall [i.e., Pvt. Henry Brimhall, Company K, 84th Illinois Infantry] is building a fire place we have to make a pen and line it with mud and stone

it is harder to make out of that stuff than if it was brick or stone if I wanted to stay close to the hot place I would stay here. I think this part of the world was the last made and this was slung to geather most any way.. I suppose you was over in Iowa. I got Squairs [i.e., Pvt. James W. Morgan, Co. D, 138th Illinois Infantry] and your letter just now I am glad to here from you so often I would rather have a letter from home than any thing else. we are drawing clothing to day. their is lotts of the men that have no shoes it is hard on a fellow to wade through the mud you never saw any thing that looked hard up in Gods country we

use to think that Knots folks looked hard but I have seen so mutch wors that it is nothing I am glad that old Abe wone out all right I should think that the copper heads and rebs would think there chance slim I wish when they git them devels that run a way that they would kill three or four of them just for fun. .. their is talk of us gitting pay before long they are makeing out the pay rolls.
Well I have wrote more than will interest you so I will quit write often to your hopeful in the army

H H Maley

Wm. M. and
E A Maley