Start of the letters written in 1864
Knoxville, Ga.
July 15th, 1864
My dearest wife,
You cannot conceive the delight your dear letter caused. Oh, darling if you could only know how eagerly the dear little documents were looked for, and what a balm they are to an aching heart when received, you would let them come often. Your letter arrived safely to Mr. Plant who kindly forwarded it to me. I did not have the pleasure of meeting him or Mr. Malory when in Macon. I only stayed there a few days and had so much to do in shoeing horses and equipping the men that I had no time for anything else. I should have been pleased to have called upon them had I been able to have done so.
I wrote Henry and Josie a short letter of congratulations on yesterday, and not knowing where they might be, sent it to you. Please put it in another envelope and send it to them. It is not exactly such a letter as I ought to have written but I had but ten minutes to write it in, so I just wrote from the dictates of my heart and fear I wrote too much about ourselves and not enough about them.
When you write me again let me know what you think of it as congratulatory letter. We are stationed at this place for a while. I do not know how long we will remain as I hear Sherman is falling back from the Chattahoochee. If it is so I expect we will be ordered up to the front, as the main object in putting us here is to check any raid that the enemy might send against Andersonville [1].
Darling your letters seem to indicate that you are gloomy and looking on the dark side of the picture. Now you must no feel gloomy for I think our Cause is brighter today than at any time during the war. Be cheerful and try and be happy. Do not allow yourself to have unpleasant thoughts about me but be like 'Conny'. Don't allow yourself to think about me and when you do, think that I am cheerful and happy in the discharge of my duty to our country. When this cruel war is over, how happy we will then be and how proud to look back upon our past life and see that we are entitled to a home in the Grand Republic made so by the part we have in her defense. When you write me tell all about the crops for I feel no little interest in our provisions for next year. Ask Pa how the crum hammock corn looks and cotton. Write about everything. We are better fed up here than we have been since we left St. Simons Island. Our rations are bacon, hard bread, meal and ……. and then very nice bakers' bread. The people at the best I have met. They give us as many vegetables as we want such as peas, beans, Irish potatoes, squashes, cabbages, corn, tomatoes, and any quantity of …….corn, watermelons, and apples. They do not sell these things but give them to us. Of course, the vegetables do not eat so well as they do prepared at home, but they do very well.
If the Yankees leave Marietta I will try and go to see Manz and help her all than I can, for if reports be true she has a hard time with the Yankees. The balance of our Regt. has not yet returned from Charleston. Ask Henry to have …….. before he leaves. Tell him he had better not bring Josie up to Athens until times get more quiet. The enemy have been contemplating a raid on that place. I will keep you posted as correctly as I can of the enemy's movements as well as our won. We are having a good deal of sickness up here in the Regt. I suppose caused from the water. I hope, however, it will soon be over. All of my boys are well and in fine spirits. I think we will make our mark when we get a showing.
You may no think hard of me for writing you short letters sometimes, for the chances are very bad about writing. Give a great deal of love to Pa, Ma, Fanny and Henry and his better half whe you see them. Tell H. I would like to hear from him and know what he thinks of married life. Witter is well and sends much love to all. You must direct your letters to me 4th Regt. Georgia Cavalry care of Col. D.L. Clinch, Macon, Ga. If we leave arrangements will be made for our mail to be forwarded to us.
Goodbye my precious love. I won't forget my promise. Don't let my little darlings forget me. Write often as you can and always hope for the best. Kiss the babies lots for me and keep a thousand for you dear self.
I am, darling, as ever your affectionate husband
Nate
[1] Andersonville - In February 1864 during the Civil War (1861-65) a Confederate prison was established in Macon County, in southwest Georgia, to provide relief for the large number of Union prisoners concentrated in and around Richmond, Virginia. The new camp, officially named Camp Sumter, quickly became known as Andersonville, after the railroad station in neighboring Sumter County beside which the camp was located. By the summer of 1864, the camp held the largest prison population of its time, with numbers that would have made it the fifth-largest city in the Confederacy. By the time it closed in early May 1865, those numbers, along with the sanitation, health, and mortality problems stemming from its overcrowding, had earned Andersonville a reputation as the most notorious of Confederate atrocities inflicted on Union troops.
http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/articles/history-archaeology/andersonville-prison