I have not been able to identify the author of this partial letter but I believe he was a member of the 5th Kansas Cavalry, possibly in Co. C which included several men from Decatur County, Iowa.
Transcription
Note: Camp Denver was located approximately three miles east of Barnesville, Kan., in north eastern Bourbon County within a few miles of the Missouri/Kansas state line.
Camp Denver, Kansas
January 7th 1862
Dear Ann,
I embrace the present time of answering your kind letter of the 25th December which I received the 3rd inst. and was truly glad to hear from you once more and to hear that you was well and doing as well as you are. I am still well and I hope that this may find you enjoying the same blessing with me. You spoke of the baby not being well. I am sorry for that but still I am in hopes that she is well before this time.
We are quartered near the Osage river at this time and are still in our tents and I expect that we will stay in them all winter. We have had three snows here this winter and some cold of course. Where there is snow, there is some cold weather. We also have some mud too.
You know that we have heard a great deal about Kansas now. I have traveled near three hundred miles in Kansas and I have seen some nice country but it does not suit me as well as Iowa. [For] one thing, there is not much timber here and the air is more oppressive that there so in the whole, I do not like it as well as I might and I do not think that it is as healthy as some other country I have seen.
You spoke of my playing cards. Now Ann, I want you [to] know that I do not play cards for money or anything else. I did play when I first came out but not for anything, nor will I as long as I have a dear family at home, so you need not give yourself any uneasiness about that for I know that my family needs all that I can get without my spending it playing cards. I have not got any money as yet but I expect that I will soon and when I get it, then I expect if nothing happens, to go home and see you and the children once more.
Jim Lane has got the command of the western division of the army and then I expect that we will have to go to work—that is, we will have to go South [and] put down rebellion as we go. You said that you wanted me to tell when we were going to fight. That I cannot do for there is nothing here to fight unless we fight one and an other and that is done sometimes but does not amount to much.
Now, for something else. You remember Elmore Stricklin [Strickland] 1 who worked at Docks with Sid and me. Well he is here in Co. D with Capt. Harvey. I saw Sam Keller yesterday. He is well and hearty and saw hard times. I was sent out last Saturday to fetch in a fellow that had been out two or three days. I took two men with me and I found him 15 miles from camp and stayed all night with him and then fetched… [rest of letter missing]
1 Elmore Strickland (1836-1911) was born in Lorain county, Ohio, and was living in Linn county, Iowa, in 1850 with his parents Nathan Strickland and Druscilla Hobbs. In 1854, Nathan was enumerated in Jackson, Keokuk county, Iowa. Elmore (“Elmer”) enlisted in Co. B, 6th Kansas Cavalry in August 1861 and mustered out in April 1865. He was taken a POW at Mazzard’s Prairoe, Arkansas on 27 July 1864.
Spared & Shared 23 