Mr Arnold Slagg the wood chopper

Camp Near Memphis December 7th 1862

Dear brother i thought it would not do to pass by and not give you a few lines about what i have seen since i have been a soldier Dear Brother i hope that these few lines will find you and hannah and the boy well as leaves me now at present Joe has got a little pain in his right knee but i think it wont amount to much ezra has got the panders but he is better then he was. give my best respects to Mr Bartin and all the rest of folks tell Alice that i expect to hear of a wedding before long i herd that gardener Bentty had got his discharge and got home if he has Dear Brother give him my best respects tell him i am glad he has escaped as well has he has for i hear that he has had a narrow escape from death tell Thomas barton i am glad to hear that he is getting better i expect he has had a hard time of it at least margaret wrote so. Dear Brother i hope that you are getting along so that in a few years you will have a good big farm for you and Francis Marrion to work and not have to split wood for marsdon at fifty cents a cord and be froze at that i should like to know if you have took that farm of good lads or not i herd you was thinking of taking it i guess it is a prity good place but its a mighty rough rough country around it but the same sun shines their as on the prarie you will be pritty close to old neighbors and good neighbors at that i pritty inquisitive about your business but you know news is news in camp Dear Brother i should like to know your crops turned on the prairie i think you would do pritty well if the crops turned out a well as they looked and if prices keeps up good and that i hope they will for your sake and Thomas Bartins tell Mr Wells that I send him my best respects. and that i calculate to write to him as quick as i have time Dear Brother we are now camped before a breast work and if we was rebels i guess they would give us Jessy they fire of a gun every night to let them know that the countersign is out and that no body can pass the lines in nor out without the countersign it shakes the very camp when it goes off our camp is about a mile off they say that they will kill six miles of i dont know about that but i they are big fellows i i know that they have raised large hills and stuck four cannons on them so that it overlooks the city and for a long way further they have cut down the timber for about two miles so that is the enemy was to come they would have a fair sweep at them there was one rebel came in and gave himself up he said that the rebel oficers said that they did not ever expect to get memphis back he said that they had no tents in arkansas Peter Binkert is very sick to night in the hospital they Doctors says that he is the sickest Boy in the hospital Dear Brother i must close it is just going dark a very fine night give my Best respects to All bicknell sends his best respects to All

Alexander