Dear Mary,-

I have an opportunity to send a letter to you by Mr.John Cleveland, so will improve it. When you see him he will tell you how I am, how I look and how I am cared for. You ask me about your brother Alex H. Wells. I did not know where he was until yesterday he came to see me. He has been in a Hospital Tent. He has trouble with his lungs and is looking badly but I hope nothing serious. He had taken cold on Maryland Heights when building a fort I think I have written you about. There are several men of our Company here but I do not see them as they are in other wards or in tents. This building is four stories high and each story holds two hundred beds. I do not think the half are in this building so you can understand how a sick person can know nothing about another sick person outside of his ward. Each room is called a ward. He has a hard cough and is very thin and weak. you ask if I cannot get a furlough to go home. I am not sick enough for that as they do not give furloughs unless a soldier is going to die or is permanently disabled. I have not heard of the Regiment since it marched from London Valley nor from brother Will since he left me. Saturday we had orders to get ready to go to Annapolis, Md., but it was countermanded and we are here yet. As Annapolis is on Chesapeake Bay it would be easier to get supplies from the North.