Camp of the 36th Reg. M. V.
August 19, 1863

My dear Mother,

Your letter written at Harvard has just arrived and I now sit down to answer it although my last letter has hardly reached you. I guess you think my last letter rather tedious and I will not dispute your thoughts for a letter filling two sheets of foolscap and sent in two envelopes is uncommonly long one.

One year ago yesterday I enlisted. How many changes have taken place in that short space of time. How many pleasant and how many trying times have each of us endured. One year ago yesterday I was at work in Worcester, Massachusetts. Today I am at work for a different employer though in the same line of business. One year. I little thought when parting with parents home and all that I held dear that I should be in the army a year from that time. I can scarcely realize that it is twelve long months since I last saw you. Yet it is so. The time may have seemed long and weary to you, but to me it seems but a few days. And were I to come home today, I doubt that I should feel otherwise. Another year may pass over our heads ere we see each other but if I am spared to see you even at the close of the third year, do not regret my coming. I never shall. If I am spared to go home, I will thank my God for preserving me.

A soldier’s life is a life of chance. Men who to all appearance were the strongest and healthiest are taken sick and die in a very short space of time. Our regiment is now reduced to about five hundred men and only two have been killed in action. What has been the cause of this? The Kentucky and more particularly the Mississippi Campaign. Those terrible marches when we were nearly famished, the stagnant, insipid water that we drank, and the sudden change from a hot climate to a colder one, all have contributed to this sickness and mortality.

I have been very fortunate, have not yet been excused a single day from duty by the doctors. I may continue as healthy through the remainder of my term, but is hardly probable. Ever since I was at Cairo on my way back to Kentucky I have had a diarrhea and a hard one at that. And were it not for a good appetite, I should have been in the hospital ere now. I cannot check it at all as yet. The doctors have no medicines at the present time. I have steeped gum bark and white oak bark and drank the bitter dose but it does me no good. Yet I do not lose flesh but feel rather weak. However, I think when the medicine somes, I shall get relieved.

But I find I am getting lengthy and as it is late, I will close by giving you my best wishes. Give my love and respects to all friends and accept a good share yourself. Kiss little Wall and the “little fat fellow” for me. Hope you are all well and happy. Write often, Mother. Once a week is not enough. Ask my friends—if I have any—to write. Please send my letters to father and oblige.

Yours truly, — Charley

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