Monday Oct.7 1861
Dear Brother Harvey:

As I was writing a few lines to Father I thought I would write a few lines to you. I am much obliged for the things you sent and you can take your pay out of the money I send home.
I will send one of our cartridges to you as soon as I can. They are one round ball with three buck shot on top of the ball. We expect to get our new guns soon. It would do you good to see them drill on the large guns at fort Albany. They fire blank cartridges and they make some noise.

We got out every forenoon to drill on skirmish drill. We shoot blank cartridges and there are some Calvary that comes to drill on the same field. They make a charge on us and we fired at them they broke pretty bad. But now they are getting to stand pretty well. We have lots of fun in skirmish drill. I still don't know to much about fighting.

King and I went down to the Chesapeake and Ohio canal to go swimming yesterday. The water in it is riley and after a rain the river is perfectly red it is so riley. There are steamboats and sailing vessels on the river all the rime but they are mostly small ones.

I expect we will move down the river near Mount Vernon soon. If there are any boys around there that want to enlist they can get into this regiment

Captain May has gone home to recruit for the regiment.

From
A.J. Juckett