William Wirt Henry to Mary Jane Henry
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I did not get an opportunity to write you yesterday for we had a long hard march
to make but this morning it is raining so we are waiting a little. You see we
are working along down very fast and Lee will have to hurry up to get to
Richmond ahead of us. The Vt. Cavalry camped here yesterday and I saw Maj Wells
Charlie and all our boys. They are all first rate. Expect they will march this
morning for "Manassas Gap" and we follow as soon as it clears up. Justin went
back and I expect he has gone to Baltimore on a sick leave. He was threatened
with fever. All the rest of us are first rate. do not hear from you yet. I see
by the papers that Charlie is drafted. I think in the first
place
Surgeon Fales will not pass him and in the next place if
he does pass him, he never will have to take the field for I believe the war is
very near over, and that there are allready troops enough in the field to settle
the ting completely, so Father had better not pay any three hundred dollars to
get a "sub" The boys are very much pleased to see how it hit in Waterbury. Ben
King, Luce and such fellows. We wish some of them had come, but if we are
successful on this campaign the rebbellion is over certain. How funny it did not
hit any of the boys at the shop.
I hope to get mail by to night and hear from you. oh darling, I lay night before
last and watched the stars for many an hour, and thought of you. of katie,
darling! of Katie Parker and all my good friends and oh how I
wished to be
with you, and see you. I could not sleep.
How many hearts will be made glad when this war is well over. I think Katie P.
ought to write me oftener. You would laugh if you could
see me writing this letter. we are camped in a big meadow just back of
upperville, have got a "fly tent" pitched and I am laying flat on my belly on my rubber blanket and writing my darling with a
pencil. There is a rumor just arrived in camp that the mail carrier of the
“third corps” has been taken prisoner with his mail, but I hope it is not true,
for I must hear from you soon. Love to
all
As ever William