Camp 1st Connecticut Artillery
Near Bermuda Hundred, Virginia
June 5th 1864

Dear little Martha,

It is with the greatest of pleasure that I now pen these few lines to you. I am alive and well which is very much of a blessing at this time and place and I hope this poor letter will find you well, my pet. Your kind favor of the 31st is before me and I am very happy to find that they left you well. Those pictures that I spoke of in that letter was those of you and me and that one of you that was on cards. They was sent by mistake instead of a letter that I had ready to send to you. That five dollars that you sent to me found me at Fort Richardson and I got the two dollars out here and I am very much in your debt for them, dear pet.

On the strength of this your last letter, I started for the 6th Regiment C. V. to see if I could find Willard Potter and as good luck would have it, I found him in camp. I think it is the first time that I ever went cousining but I found him a very pleasant young man. He has not got entirely well yet for he has been in the hospital.

It is as you supposed, Ed [Sisson] feels his oats some if not under and he has got pretty thick with some of our boys. There was some of the 7th Regiment killed and a good many taken prisoners and I think that Kinbod Pot [?] was taken for I can’t find him anywhere in his regiment.

Return my love to Mother and the girls and tell them that Chet thinks of them often. Don’t be afraid to write to me for if I am alive, I will get your letters. I have partly given up the notion of going in the Navy for if I should go there, I should have to stay my time out if the war should end and I fear too that your State pay would be stopped and I don’t want that to happen just yet. They have been trying to see how many of us they could kill, I guess, for they have been shelling our works very hard. It makes me feel funny to have them pieces of iron fly past and burst on all sides and all a fellow can do is to trust to the Lord and let them come. When they come over, they cry furlough for about fifty time and when they burst they cry discharge. I will now close this with my best wishes to my little pet wife. My love to you, dear wife.

Yours as ever, — Chet

Write soon, my pet.

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