Dear Father & Mother

I received your letter yesterday and was very glad for it had been a long time since I have had the honor of peruseing your letters I had a letter from Huldah yesterday she is married to Martin Collens some time last month the folks are all well and George Griffin is getting better he has had the Typhoid fever he is at the Lexington Hospital and she wrote that he was going to get a furlough if he could but I guess it is doubtful if he gets one The Major is going to start home to night tomorrow

I do not know what his business is I was out on picket night before last and it was very cold it is froze 4 inches deep the ground Harvy and I we have 2 blankets apiece and we double blankets together nights we have a good time of it take it all in all he takes care of my things when I am gone and I do his he had a box sent to him and he divides with me when I got mine I did the same we have always layed together ever since we got our tent so you see that it seems as though we were brothers so we are in one sence of the word he is just as good a compnion as any one in the tent he was a corporal awhile but he has give it a while

I suppose I might have had a such an office but I tell you it is a bore one has to go if one of the guard calls the Coprporal of the guard he has to run then and he has to be up just as much as one of the guards it is the way to get higher but if that is the way to get up I do not want to clime as I know of wWe have mooved inside of the fortifycation we have got them almost finished there is about 2 miles of them Jess Miley [i.e., Pvt. Jesse W. Miley, Co. H, 100th Ohio Infantry] has just came in and sayes he the Colonel is as just tight as a bitch perfectly wild as a but so it goes but I guess I shall live through it if I am careful although I

I have caught a bad cold to day I have been washing my cloths there is 3 of us writeing to night There was one of our boys died last night I Robinson [i.e., Pvt. Isaac Robinson, Co. H, 100th Ohio Infantry] he was sick about 36 hours the surgeon sayed it was the camp fever but I do not know whether knows or not the most of the boys think it was something else I did want those socks I have got 4 pairs now pretty good supply now well good by for this time write soon and all of the news

H E Randall