LETTER #10

Camp near Union Mills

November the 2nd 1861

Dear Father and Mother I again seat myself to write to you I expect if you get all the letters I write you will get tired reading them but when I think of home and the enjoyments of home I want to be conversing with home folks as near as posable although I am perfictly content with my lot but I can tell you last night and to day is enough to try our faith I never heared it rain much harder nor heared the wind blow harder Columbus Peter Lem and I were lying in our tent about 4 oclock in the night the tent blew down and the wind a blowing and it raining Col an me went out to d[r]ive the stak[e]s Lem [and] Pete [were] in side holding it up We got it up and lay down about the time the boys got to sleep down it came again We set it up again and Pete is now driving the stak[e]s while the most of the rest of the boys are gone to Bull Run Bridge to remove a drift from it to keep it from washing away me in the tent with a very bad cold and a soar throat some of them hauling wood some trying to cook some grumbling about not having nothing to eat since last night I wish you could be here one hour to see our camp it is worse outside of the tent than it ever gets a round our well and not much better in the tents We went out on picket last monday and returned to camp thursday We had quite a pleasant trip on picket We only stood guard one day and night our Company I mean I did not stand any myself from the fact I was not well at the time thursday evening we were mustered in for pay for two months but it is uncertain when we will get the pay though perhaps before long I drew $30.00 se[n]t you $15.00 and have $5.00 now so you may guess how we spend mony here it [is] strongly supposed by some that we will be sent home a while in the winter but I dont have much confidence in it though it may be so there is one thing [for] shore we cant stay here in thes tents When I wrote to you before we were throwing up brest works We are still at it and will be for some time yet the report is that one of our spies managed to have a conversation with the Enemy he sais we will be attacted on the 4th of this [month] he sais there are two hundred thousand yankees this side of Alexandre We are ready for them and if they come we will give our yankee friends as warm a reception as they have had lately We are all looking and anceous for the fight though many of us will have to fall We heard heavy firing down on the Potomac last evening I expect they had a little fray there

I have a letter in my satchel now ready to start to Bill Arther which I will start in the morning I wish you would write whether he is still there or not also write where Neal Livingston is I wrote to him some time ago and have got no answer and be certain to let me now something about Elbert I have worte to him twice and I have never heard from him since I left I have written 50 letters since I left I write to you ever week and the last letter from home was dated sept 20th your letters are more apt to come through than ours

Give my respects to Mr McKinney if he is still living there also to Mr Goggin and Uncle Alex folks tell them Lem is well and as fat as a bacon hog I weigh [1]41 lbs 6 lbs more than I ever weighed before tell the children all howdy for me

Yours

W. H. Crow

to G. W. Crow

When this you see remember me

Though many miles apart we be

The boys have come back from the bridge it washed away while they were there

This page was last updated on 01/31/02

Copyright 1994 DeWayne R. Welborn; Owasso, Oklahoma
All Rights Reserved
Library of Congress Catalog Card No. 94-XXXXX