.NDY0.NjMx

written every week one and sometimes two letters, my last was on Sunday when I was on picket. Camp rumor, (which is law - gospil with some) says that there is no mail to go north for thirty days, for my part I pay no attention to such rumors untill it is officialy announced, there would be more dissatisfaction expressed in depriveing a soldier of a corispondant's home for one month, than of his pay for a year. There is many a man goes to the Hospital from dispondency caused by trouble, and not hearing from his friends there is a case in our Company Wm Gardener he had not heard fro home since leaving Memphis untill a week ago, he had been low spirited and finaly became unfit for duty, he is now all right again, his folks saw his name as one of those left at Memphis in the Hospital and directed their letters there. It is commenceing to rain again, after three or four days of fair weather, I expect we shall have another siege of bad weather. We are getting along much faster than I expected in the canal, we now work every day, half of each pr day. I think [begin vertical writing] A private in the 4th Virginia showed me a scar on his forehead where he was shot in a Richmond prison for looking out the window