I received a letter from you this morn dated Aug 3 and was glad to hear that you were well we are all well in camp and hope to remain so untill peace is declared It is raining now while I am writeing and it wets my paper so it is bad write on Why does not Cons James get his discharge he surely ought to have it if he is disabled you said that Cy and Hove had a good time after Morgan that will do to tell to them that have not been in the service but not to me I know how these marches go myself I have been there it is no desirable thing

You wrote that you had just herd that the rebs scared us out of our camp and the cavelry drove them and we occupied our old camp it is no such thing I will try and tell you something of our scrape our Brigade was at Stanford all but 4 Co of the 144th one night the remaining 6 Co of that Regt and one battalion of the 9th O Cav were ordered out towards loudon to drive the rebs back but they was to many for our men so they fell back to Richmond and there they made a stand of a few minutes but could do nothing with them And all of this time Col Gilbert was receiveing dispatches from Hickman Bridge finely the order came for us to fall back from that place so we pulled up and started mad 27 miles in 15 hours

over a hard pike foot sore and exhausted we layed down on the ground to rest from half past 2 untill half past 4 in the morning Gilbert was mad as he could be because he had to march us so he wanted us to stop at Stanford but could not for he said there would be where we were wanted and that made him mad He supposed all of this time that these dispatches was comeing from Gen Hartsuff but not so it was Fy they did not want Gilbert to have all of the praise Well it turned out just as Gilbert had anticipated that the rebs made their way through Stanford and the boys that was there said if the 100th 104th Regt had been there we could have taken all of them as well as part they did take 75 rite in the square of the town

So you will see by the information that you have got that you and the informer was fooled for our Brigade would have whiped them all for we have 3 intfantry Regts 2 mounted Regts 1 battalion of Cav and 2 batterys so you will see that we have a young army I rather think we are going through into Tenn you will see by this slip of paper I had a letter from Susan Griffin to day it is the first mail we have had for some time Coleman and Daniel Daws of Mass were drafted so she wrote good by write soon and all of the news You asked me why I did not write to Tim or Sarah if they want to write I will answer and if not all right you can tell them

H E Randall