Fort Richardson, Virginia
April 23, 1863
Dear Wife,
I will now pen you a few lines to let you know that I am well and hope this will find you the same. I have no news to write of but I must let you know that I am thinking of you. They have got a new humbug a going here now for they are trying to get the boys to enlist for another year so as to make their time for four years. They promise them fifty dollars down and thirty days furlough. Thank the Lord that I have only a little over a year to stay out here and when my time is out, I am out to stay for it is the hardest life that a man can live. I would like it if I could stand it, but the warm weather is coming and with it, a long spell of sickness for this plaguey liver complain of mine will surely lay me up. I know it for it has done it twice before.
Give m love to all the folks and tell them that I would like to see them very much but that I can’t see the point of coming home for thirty days and pay a year’s time for it. I will now close this with my love to my dear little pet wife.
Good night dear, from you loving husband, — Chester A. Chapman
To Martha L. Chapman, Westerly, R. I.
Spared & Shared 20 