Write often and direct as before I will
answer your letters prompt. Mrs. Elsworth
Heydon sends me some paper. remember me
to Mr ____ I thank you for that paper
you sent me there was considerable news
in it they seem to think a good deal of this
Regt.
Stevenson Jackson Co.
Ala March 15th 1864
Dear Sister
Yours of the 7th I have just received and
read I am glad that you are enjoying life
so pleasantly and hope that you will get
settled in a home of your own for it is much
pleasanter than to be moving about from place
to place I never liked that away of living
although it has always been my lot and
since I enlisted I have got pretty well
used to it for we know not one day where
we will be the next and a soldier does
not care much after they have been in the
service a short time they get used to moving
but one good thing when we move it does
not take us long to build a house as a
general thing not over ten or fifteen
minutes and it is a house that a soldier
can rest in as well as we need in a feather
bed at home I have for my bed now
the soft side of a board but I presume
that is better than I will have in a
month from now but i am used to
resting on anything even in the mud. I
have lay down at night on the ground
and the next morning when I would awake
up the watter would be two or three inches deep
where I lay. but it never disturbed my sleep.
I never could beleive it before I tried it
but I find it as I have heard many
Soldiers say before I enlisted
I here that Genl Grant is in favor
of the capture of Richmond as the first
step in the Spring Campaigne
and he sayss in order to accomplish
this he will call on the 11th and 12th Corps
from Chattanoga and the 15th and 17th from
the Mississippi River if they do this
they will make it a sure thing so
you see I will have a chance to see
Va. once more but I would rather stay
where we now are I like this place
pretty well although I do not like the
inhabitants first rate they are so
different from the people of the north
you could hardly find a girl in this
part but chews tobacco Oh! how
sweet they look with a big Quid of
tobacco in their cheek squirting around
where ever it may happen I think I
would choose to do my own rather than to
have one of those delicate things do it
for I can cook Buiscuit or shortcake
equal to most of the cooks and sometimes
I get up a pretty good potpie we are
living on the top shelf at present.
I hear from home pretty often and
from Delia once a week Ansel wants
me to get a furlow and come home
and stay awhile so does D. she teases
pretty hard but there is no use of trying
I could not get one neither do I care for
going home untill my time is out it
would be harder for to part now than
it was at first Although I would
like to see D. firstrate and the rest of
the folks but if I am spared my time
will soon be out then I will go home to stay
I do not think I will enlist again
as my sheet is about half full I will close
for present from your affectionate
J.A. Morrison
Maintained by Sue Greenhagen. E-mail: greenhsh@morrisville.edu