Page 9th  If we get our pay I will try to send it home some way.  I do not know Just how, I will keep a portion of it, I am owing the sutler $6.10 cts for boots & paper.  I will send $35 or 40 dollars, if I can. rumor is that we will march to morrow or next day. & it is said we will go North!  What do they mean?  I supposed we were in earnest about going south this uncertainty plagues me, I have always been in the habit of going pretty much where & when I pleased & it grinds me the worst kind to be led about not knowing where, but it is said that there is not enough feed or provisions to subsist on in the country south of us & you can see that it would be no pleasant thing to go down in Dixy & starve.  The trains from Pilot Knob to this place have taken nearly everything that man or mule can eat & it is the same way from Rolla here, so you will look on the map & see about where we are.  I often wonder if you look over the maps to see where we are & where we have been if you do you must immagine that we are among rocks & hills & clear sparkling brooks & rivers. & the most magnificent springs of water I eve saw.  There is one spring at Vanburen or rather 4 miles below that place that comes out of the rocks from under a mountain that it is said it can be heard 6 or 7 miles.  I heard it myself while on picket above Vanburen, a distance of nearly 5 ms.  Another rumor there has about teams came in from Rolla yesterday & it is said that they are ordered back without unloading.  They are loaded with provisions, so there must be something in the wind.  We have only drawn half rations for a week, now they are issuing full rations
