how much good it does me to have you write that you enjoy the comforts of religion, O! I think Cy will answer this one, I try my best to have him, I don't think it is because he don't love you that he don't write, but that he dislikes letter writing generally; it is about bed time, & my eyes don't feel very strong, so pleasant dreams my dear. 
Friday evening the 20th  It is evening again O! how I should love to know where my loved one is tonight; I can't reconcile my mind to the thought that you are going to Vicksburg, you don't know how anxiously I am looking & waiting for a letter from you, I shall feel more anxious if possible than I have before, as you are now going into a climate whose air is poisoned by the miasma rising from bogs & decayed & decaying vegetation; O! I do hope the report of the evacuation of the place is true; I see by the Tribune of last Saturday that the health of the army at Vicksburg is improving; my feelings are constantly vacillating between hope & fear; sometimes I am elated with the thought that the war will end by fall at the farthest, & again I am away down in the valley of despair; but you have learned 'ere this that my feelings are constantly fluctuating, I am either all hope, or all despondency; I am trying to school my feelings to a more even tenor, & try to give myself & all that I have into the hands of God, O! that I could do it with implicit confidence, & then I need not be troubled with any of these fears; but we are human & the ties of earth are strong, & I know if I did not love you so much, I could not feel so much solicitude for your welfare; & now while I think of it, could you not get a transfer in to a cavalry regiment, I think as a general thing they are heal-
