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File: 07MAY65.doc
Path: My Documents \ Word Files
Subdir: Felkner
Collect: SC2026, Felkner
Locate: Wis. Hist. Society

                                                                                    Fort Scott Kansas May 7th 1865
My Dear Wife,
            I wrote you a long letter last Sabbath evening (which I presume you have not got yet) in which I told you I was going to obey the command to "Remember the Sabbath Day to keep it Holy" by devoting as much of the day as I could to you.  And although I have been on duty today and have been very busy, being Officer of the Day in the village, I can devote this evening to writing to you.  I also wrote you a letter last Tuesday night both of which you will probably have received before this reaches you.  I regret to say darling that I have not received a letter from you since the one you wrote dated April 9th.   That letter was directed to Paola and was sent to me here.  You can hardly concieve how eagerly I have watched the mail and how disappointed I feel when the post master says "nothing for you".  I think you must have written and the letters have been miscarried for I cannot think you would delay writing to me for so long a time.  Oh Sarah, if you have not written me when you get this, do write at once.  If you only knew how much I prize your letters, how I have read them and re-read them and how keenly I have felt the disappointment of not hearing from you.  I know you would write me at least once in a week.  I have thought about it so much to-day and have thought that perhaps you were sick and could not write or that something was the matter.  I have written you four letters since I have been here at Fort Scott and have not yet got a word in reply. Ain't it too bad Sis - I am going to write to Sang also to-night to see if I can't get a letter from him.  Cody gets one or two letters a week from him and it does seem as though I am as worthy to receive a letter from my wife as he is from his. 

I don't feel much like writing to night sis, for it has been a long hot day and I have been on my feet since five o'clock this morning and I had a dull pain in my head and I feel tired and feverish and I must say lonesome.  I would give six months pay if I could sit down by you to-night and have you hold my head and talk about half asleep and half awake as we used to do.  I tell you a man don't know much about the comforts of home and what a precious treasure a good wife is until he goes away and leaves them.  I don't think I ever should have understood and appreciated how inseparably my happiness is bound up and connected with you had I not been this separated from you.  And so I shall love you all the more tenderly if we both live to meet again.  Won't you love one better than ever Sarah.  I've got something to tell you.  I have got one lady acquaintance in Fort Scott, the wife of Capt. Pond, 3rd Wis. Cavalry.  When I was in the printing business in Oshkosh (cuss the business) Pond worked for me.

 He has since got married and is now [a] Captain in the Army.  He gave me an introduction to his wife the other day.  She is a very good sort of an illiterate girl, not very pretty nor lady like, quite gabby and has got a very shrill, harsh, voice about like Mrs. Hollister's.  I hate such voices in women.  I learned from her that there is but one unmarried young lady in town that belongs to the upper crust and also who the upper crust are.  I took up a book lying on the table entitled "Cudjoe's Cave" and asked her if she had read it and what kind of book it was and she said it was "splendid".  I did not go into the "literary" and further speaking of "literary" puts me in mind of Jenny Wilson.  How does she and Edmunds get along.  I suppose they have clear sailing now that poor Dick is gone.  You recollect the morning I went away, the cars broke and we had to go to Oshkosh.   I went up to Jenny with Edmunds & took tea.  I really pitied Jenny for what ? the true facts may be and I am afraid they are bad enough, the generally received opinion in Oshkosh is that she is criminally intimate with Edmunds.  And I must say I think so myself.  I know he would never ? and hang around a woman as he does about Jenny merely for the pleasure of her society.  Well nous verous as a Frenchman would say. 

I am going to sit down one of these days and give you a history of our Regiment and a description of its officers.  I have got the photographs of some of them and when I get them all I will send them to you together with another of mine and we will have them in your album all together, as a sort of military photograph gallery.  When officers are together so much and have so much in common and each having a pride in his regiment, they necessarily become much attached to each other.  And I know you will feel an interest in the Regiment and its officers because your husband belongs to it. 

I heard yesterday that a story had got in circulation in Oero that Cady gave the boys some money to buy his sword and they got me to present it to him.  Perhaps that was what you alluded to in your letter.  This was not so.  I know the boys in the Regiment raised the money themselves and a delegation came to me and asked me to make the presentation speech, which I did.  I heard also they had stories in circulation about our getting drunk.  I can only answer for myself.  I have not drinked a gill of liqueor since I left home and Willie, Red, and Sergeants Morton and Pingry and Kimball who are with me every day and in fact all the boys in my Company know this and that I don't have any whiskey drinking in my Company either.  My men would just about as soon be guilty of disobeying an order as to have me catch one of them drunk. 

My space is growing less and I must begin to condense.  And how is your own health my own sweet Sis.  Some how I like to call you Sis.  Do you like to have me call you so?  And how is our little Lilly.  Does she grow fleshy as she grows older and is she as pretty as she used to be?  How do you get along making garden this spring and what kind of weather has it been?  How do Sandy's folks get along and the other neighbors?  How is Sang and Alf and Hattie?  Has your Aunt gone home yet and you have a pleasant visit with her?  I wish you would send me a Sentenal once in a while.  I would not only be glad to read the paper but to know that it came from you.

 Now Darling when you get this won't you please write me a good long letter and when I get home I will give you a hundred kisses for every letter you write.  How many you give me for each letter I write you?  I want you to criticise my letters to you Sis; and if there is anything you don't like you must write me about it.  Do you think of me Darling?  I wonder if you are thinking of me know.  I wish our minds were so constituted that when we thought of each other we could both know it at the same time.  That would be a sort of mental telegraph wouldn't it.  Good night my dear wife, Kiss Lilly for me as you have done before and for yourself a real long lovers kiss from

                          Your own Charley