to your brothers and father, and I hope that before this time next year, we can say that we "owe no man".  If your life is spared, as you say, ten months will soon slip by; but O! how many lives and hopes may be crushed before that time; I pray that mine may be preserved and realized.  I am beginning to count the days now, and many castles I build of happiness a prosperity for the future. O! I do hope you are not now on the field of carnage, as you may be as you were moving; How uncertain is a life in camp, you know not when you start where you will pitch your tents but all this privation is for a noble cause, one of best that ever enlisted human sympathy; Emma has gone with "Dic" Ross down to Aunt Sarahs to a party tonight the children May and Ida are in bed, father lies streched out on chairs with
