As I do not hear from you any more I will endeavor to let you hear from me I am in Ky yet I am well quite so and so are the rest of the boys in the Company that you know Metts is cooking again he sayes that he feels the best he has for a month I am glad to hear for if he is sick it makes me feel bad and it is just so if any of the boys get down but I am in hope that we shall all be able to see home inside of 6 months if all reports are true we shall I think but it is doubtful The news that has come to us is almost to good to be true but for all of that I think it is Some of the boys are somewhat dissatisfied

As to the disposition of those prisoner that old Grant took for my part I do not see how he could do any other way with them he gave them three days rations before he left them go if he had not parolled them he could not have got transportation for them up the river then it would weaken his command to send a guard over them I suppose he will leave a garrison at Vicksburg and then he will start for Port Hudson and he will toss them arround a while and what troops there and then he will ask them to surrender and if they will not then he will make them They will think he is a hard customer to deal with and so he is It is something of a mistery to me why they do not pitch into Charleston

They have been laying there so long and not done something Q A Gillmore is commander of the land forces there and if he does no better there then he did here he will never take it but I am in hope he will We were reviewed yesterday by Maj Gen Hartsuff Comdg of the troops in Centrail Ky he is not the smartest looking man I ever saw but so far he has done well It seems to be the general opinion of the officers in the Regt that when we were ordered from Sommerset [sp. Somerset] that we should go out of the State but think we shall stay here for a while yet I am glad of it for as long as we stay here we shall never get into any very hard fight but if we get out of the state then it will not be any thing strange if we get into some of it

Oweing to some disarrangement of the mail rout we do not get any mail we have not got any but once since we left Mt Vernon and they say that what we send does not go throug but for my part I do not see why it is stopped but I am of the opinion that we shall get it soon and when it does it will be all the more exceptable although I do not like to read old letters never the less I can peruse them with pleasure I must draw my letter to a close good by write soon and all of the news

H E Randall
To
Z H Randall
Lena Fulton County Ohio

P S It is the report in camp we are going to back to Heckmans bridge a distance of 25 or 30 miles back towards Lexington that is good