No 31 
Camp near Carthage Louisiana April 19th 1863 
My Dear Mary:  Although it has been but a short time since I wrote to you, the same desire to hold that sweet communion of thought and sentiment is constant.  There is one thing that is a constant source of congratulation: viz. I believe there has nothing that I have written that has ever came back to the Regiment:  My Dear girl you can immagine knowing as you do my somewhat sensitive nature what a source of pleasure this affords me: I hear almost every day some one teasing & Jeering at an old neighbor about something he has written home to his wife or a friend;  Now such things would anoy me!  I am happy that I have no such annoyance.  No my precious wife my confidence in you has never been betrayed, even in matters of small moment, I prize your esteem & love for me above all things earthly, And may I never prove unworthy of that love & esteem.  What pleasure would it be to us to write to each other if we expected our letters to be handed round to any one to be read & critisised.  I would not wish you to think that I would wish you to keep all that I write to your self.  There are many things that I write to you that I expect & wish you to read to my Father & Mother & Cy, & in fact all our family - & I have written portions of letters that I would not care to have you read to your own intimate & confidential friends.  What makes me feel proud of you is that you know what is prudent & safe to entrust to others.  I think that I have written as much & confided as much to you as any one in the Regiment, & it has been sacredly kept.  I am not vain but I feel that I have a right to feel proud of it.  I would not write in this way to you if I did not know that you can understand me better than any one else - Yes my girl I must consider that you have penetrated the somewhat excentric nature of one that even my Mother could never understand.  I have always thought that my own Father & Mother and even my brother & sister, with whom I spent the happy young years of innocence, never could [see?] the iner workings of a nature that to them was a mystery. I think you have & on this account I can speak & write to you with an unreserved confidence. But enough on this subject You will pardon such a long digression from the usual routine of letter writing