60th Illinois Infantry - Black Baby as Big as a Rabbit

Item LTR-11337

Description

Original Civil War soldier's letter. 2 pages, written in period ink.

Headquarters Co. E, 60th [Illinois] Regiment
[Late August 1862]
 
Dear Kate,
 
I am sorry to hear you are sick and not able to be up. I want you to call in some physician and not wait until it will be too late. You must not be afraid to take medicine. I received your letter of the 18th inst. It found me well. You say you have not received any letter from me since to come to Liberty. I have wrote 4 to you and one to Harvey and one to Grandmother. I have received 4 from you since you came there and none from Du Quoin. It is singular you do not get my letters. I wrote to you about my money. We got our pay last Saturday—that is, those who did not allot theirs home. My money will be at home in a short time. How did you fix it? Did you tell Mother to receipt for Ben’s money? I shall write to her to let it out to Page if he wants it and take a note for it.
 
I have wrote to Dike four or five times and have not got any answer yet. I am afraid he does not get my letters. I want you to write to me often and if you get so you can’t write, get someone else to write for I will be uneasy until I hear that you are well again. If I did not keep well, I would go back to Du Quoin where you can have your health and can hear from me often for I write 2 and 3 letters a week. Do as you like.
 
There is lots of troops concentrating here. I do not know what they are coming here for unless it is to take Chattanooga. There is a good many gone on and I hear this morning that we will have to go on in a day or two. We still get cotton. There is 4 of our company gone out with the wagons this morning after cotton. We get plenty of vegetables such as snap beans and corn and cabbage and plenty of corn dodgers and you ought to see some of the big peach cobblers. Tell Aunt Lima and Em when I come home, I will learn them how to make peach cobbler and corn dodgers.
 
Tell the boy I was out in the country and I saw a little black baby 2 weeks old. It was a curiosity. It was about as big as a rabbit. It did not look very dark. I told it’s Mother she had been fooling with some white man but she denied it.
 
We are ordered to take all the property of the Rebels and use it. There is no more guarding Rebels’ property or houses. I am in hopes we will be over this war by Spring. Write soon. Ben is sick in the hospital. Prior is well. He has been promoted to a sergeant. Hive my love to all the folks and children and keep a heap for yourself.
 
From your loving and absent Quince. To his loving wife, Sarah C. Adams
 
Let me hear from you soon.