wish to circulate any thing that would be calculated to injure any one or to wound their feelings, but I can trust you with some things, which I will state.  As for Barton his course while in the army has been - moral & in some respects hardly that.  I am told by good authority that he used to while at camp Patterson stand by & see the officers play cards for oyster, peaches, &c & help eat them. & he said that he did not consider it out of the way to play cards to see who should pay for the treat.  I have seen him stand over a crowd of loafers that you would be mortified to see me associate with & appear to enjoy the game verry much & he boasted what a good player he used to be, & now I have no faith in such men, he rides along with the Col on the march & is verry sociable with both officers & men, & is quite popular & would make a very good Aid De Camp for a general, but he is Chaplain & is receiving considerably over $1200 twelve hundred dollars a year as Chaplain.  It is so much thrown away.  I believe I wrote you once about the conduct of one of our Capt, a Methodist minister who organized a a church at St. Louis while we were at Schofield Barracks.  He is a shrewd man & an eloquent, pathetic preacher one who can reach almost any heart.  I have sat almost entranced under his eloquence & pathos.  In a word his equal is hard to find.  The evening we left St. Louis, & after we came out on the street, in front of an elegant mansion, surrounded by beautiful shrubbery & a fashionable, licensed house of ill fame the soldiers many went in to the well to fill our canteens with water (we stayed in front of this house 2 or 3 hours).  I noticed this good! man! amusing himself with a girl at the gate, there were 3 or 4 girls she had his sword, keeping mimic guard he appeared so much taken with her that it disgusted me with him.  I think he went into the house with her.  I have since heard him preach some of the best of sermons
