But here I am telling you thing that you have read before I did in all probability & have forgotten in the rush of other news, for I suppose that you keep posted on the news of the day in regard to war items, you cannot but perceive that we as a nation are on the eve of important events  I know that the political horizon in the east is overcast with clouds, but surely the great heart of the people is right on so momentous a question as a Nations life.  It cannot be that we as Americans have become so besotted by political gamblers, or so sordid from the the lust for gold or from any other cause - O, I was forgetting that black Demoniacal word Slavery until I began to write the word - cause.  This is what has degraded us as a nation.  We have not become sordid - We aim at enterprise.  It is not ignorance, we are an inteligent people.  I was about to say that it cannot be possible that we as a nation although our government is of short duration compared with that of some others, will let our free institutions with all the blessings that flow from them be swallowed up by that monster Anaconda which has for an age been entwining its slimy folds around us, no it can never be, I will yet hope for better things.  There are a great many of my fellow soldiers desponding.  They think the war will never end. &  that we are elected to remain in the service "our three years".  I tell them to cheer up & hear the canons roar at Fredericksburg. & now listen to the word as it is spoken by Burnsides 186 guns, "On to Richmond" & other impertantant victories we are achieving, every where, some will
