Allegany to Appomattox: The Life and Letters of Private William Whitlock of the 188th New York Volunteers

5. Life in the Trenches

46 5 Life in the Trenches Letter 7 Oct 16 . . . 64 Dear wife and children I am foarsed to write another letter without receiving one. I tel you Lide, you dont know how I would like to hear from home. it will be five weeks tomorrow morning since I left home and have received one letter. I am well and getting fat as a hog—it agrees here with me first rate. Lide I hope this will find you all well and hope you get my letters even if I dont get yours. we expect to get a lot of them when they come. I cant think of much to write for I write so often but if I was home I could tell you a good deal but I guess we will have to wate a while. tel the boys and all the rest of the folks I wont write any more to them until there is some communication opened between hear and thair and then I will write lots. tell them all to write to me for I think we will get our letters after a while. Lide let me know whither you got the ten dollars I sent from Washington or not and those picters I sent from Elmira. have you got the potatoes dug and how meny is there and how much Bucksheet did you have? How is the pigs getting along and how is the corn? will you have enough corn to fat the pigs good? Write all the news. I have none to write. Every day is a like here. we have got used to the booming of the canon that we dont mind it at all. we can hear it night and day, Sunday also. I can hear them all the way up the James river while I am writing. Life in the Trenches  47 Lide I think I will send my vot to Rus Martin and if they think I am not another have Mr. Kratts tel them I am a resident of that town and so that it goes in. we are still at work on those forts and breastworks; they will be a strong thing when finished. I think the Rebs cant break through them. I hope we can stay in them all winter. excuse me this time and I will write again in a few days. tel Lana Cook that I thought her spark was going down in tenisee but I saw him at Elmira going for a soldier. tel her to write me a letter and I will be very much obliged to her. Lide, I want you to answer all my letters as fast as you can get them by and by. I will send you the directions on a slip of paper in this. nothing more. good bye. Will Whitlock Letter 8 City Point . . . Oct. 19 . . . 64 Well Lide, I begin to feel pretty well for I have got so I get a letter every night. yesterday noon when we came in from work the order came for us too move. a part of our regiment had come and had encamped about three miles from us and we had to move to them. we are only about one mile farther from City Point than we was. there is sevan campings of us now. I hope this will find you all in as good helth as it leaves me I never was eny helther in my life than I have bin since we left Elmira. I hope Hanks folks and all the rest had a good time a thear party. Tel them I would like to have bin there but never mid tel them to enjoy them selfs as best they can. Well Lide I am just relieved from gard. it is one oclock. I will have to go on agane at five. we all like to be on gard for we are then excused two days from working on the ditch. 48  Allegany to Appomattox Lide tel Father and Mother and all the rest not to worry about me but tel them all to write. I have so much writing to do I cant write very often to them all. I think I must try and write to Morris and Hank this week. I have not written to them nor Austin yet, whenever I get a chance to write I feel as though I...