Dear Mary,-

As I have not heard from you about your coming to see me I will write to you. I keep about the same and will write today as I feel able. I have received a letter from brother Will and one from Henry J. Cleveland. They have marched again and are now at Stafford Court House, Va. I must write you all about their march from Fairfax Station to that place. On the 19th the Regiment received marching orders and started at 9 o'clock A. M. toward Dumfries, and had very good marching the first two days as the roads were in very good condition and the weather very comfortable. The second night they camped at Dumfries, a very old village, passing through the County of Prince William, making a distance of about twenty miles in the two days. In the night it commenced to rain very hard and as they had not trenched around their tents they were soon drowned out and had to build fires to dry themselves. The next day the roads were in very bad condition as there was no bottom to the mud, and raining or snowing all day they kept growing worse and after marching all day they had made but three miles. The weather was severely cold and fuel was scarce as the fencing was guarded as also was a large stack of straw that the men would like to get to put into their tents to raise them out of the mud so that they could have a dry place to lie. The people have claimed to be Union people and all of their property was guarded. Lieutenant Geo. W. Baker thought the men ought to have a fire and the straw and knew if some one would make a break through the guard and get some that the rest of the men would follow. So he went to where the men were gathered at the fence of the stack of straw and looked at it with the others, and when he saw the guard was not looking at him he sprang, caught a rail, dodged a bayonet thrust and disappeared. It was enough. The guard could not keep back a thousand men that wanted the wood and straw and in less time than it takes me to write it they were gone. That night they had a good straw bed and wood to cook coffee over. The next morning, January 22, 1863. the Regiment could not move as the high water had washed away a bridge that was over a stream that could not be forded and they could not move until another had been built, which took them until noon. about noon they got orders to fall in and started on the march again. That afternoon and all the next day they were in unfathomable mud, but the night of the 23rd they went into Camp at Stafford Court House occupying log hut quarters that had been left by other soldiers, which saved them considerable work. They had marched about ten miles in the last three days.

Dr. Kennedy has been to see me and says he has sent foryou to come and thinks no doubt but I will go home with you. Miss Hall is taking the best care of me, giving me my medicine and food. Expecting to see you soon, I am,

On the 27th of January, 1863, I was examined by Dr. William B. Wheeler for a furlough and the again on the 29th by Dr. Wheeler and Dr. H. Earnest Goodman and certificate made and approved which was as follows:

Sergeant Robert Cruikshank of Company H, 123rd N. Y.Vols., having applied for a certificate on which to ground an application for a furlough, I do certify that I have carefully examined this soldier and find that he has had an attack of intermittent fever followed by chronic diarrhoea and in a very low and debilitated condition and in consequence thereof he is in my opinion unfit for duty. I do further declare my belief that he will not be able to resume his duties in a less time then thirty days, and also consider a change of climate outside the limits of this Military Department absolutely necessary in order to prevent death or permanent disability.

Dated at Harpers Ferry Hospital, Va., this 29th day of January, 1863.

Examined and approved

W. Earnest Goodman

Surgeon 28th P. V. in charge of

Harpers Ferry Hospital, Va.

Sabbath evening my wife got a letter from Dr. Kennedy urging her to come at once to Harpers Ferry. She made ready, went to the Village to stay over night and took the early train Tuesday morning and arrived at Harpers Ferry at noon Tuesday, the 27th. Dr. Osman from East Greenwich, N. Y. was at the Ferry and met her at the depot and would not let her go to the hospital where there were so many sick men until she had her dinner which was a long time to her, I not knowing she had arrived. Dr. Osman had been sent to the Ferry for a young man by the name of Tucker and for Alex H. Wells. The next four days we were waiting for furloughs and getting ready for home. Monday morning, Feb. 2nd, before light we were helped into an ambulance and driven to the depot where we boarded the train for Baltimore, thence to Philadelphia where we arrived in the evening and were taken to the hospital that was kept up by the ladies of the city. I was tired but after a good supper and having a good clean bed I felt better. Mrs. C. went home with one of the ladies who helped at the hospital. The ladies who did the work were the wealthy of the city. They would go to the hospital during the day and stay until the trains with the sick had all come in and after they had provided them with a good supper and bed and seen that nothing more was wanted for the night, they went home leaving only enough to keep the night watch. No soldiers remained in this hospital. It was only to provide for those passing through. In the morning they would return, help the soldiers off, providing him with lunch and any other necessaries. The ladies of Philadelphia will be kindly remembered by many a soldier. In the morning we crossed the Delaware to Camden and took the cars for Perth Amboy, and from there to New York by boat, where we arrived in the evening, went to a hotel and stayed over night. It was severely cold that night and the next morning we took the cars for Troy where we stayed over night again, arriving at home the next day, Thursday, Feb. 5th, 1863. For some days after getting home I was not able to go out. I did not hear anything from the Regiment until the 14th of February when I heard that Capt. John S. Crary had come home that day on a ten days' leave of absence. On Monday, the 16th, he came to see me and told me that Lieutenant Elliot had resigned as 1st Lieutenant of the Company and had left the service and that Colonel McDougall had sent to the Governor of this state for promotion the names of Joseph W. Culver as 1st Lieutenant and Walter F. Martin as 2nd Lieutenant of Company H, and left me out, and if I expected to go back to the service and wanted the 2nd Lieutenancy I had better have some influential friend go with me to Albany and see the Governor and that he would give me a letter to take with me. I sent a request to Wm. A. Russell to go for me as I was not able to go, but he said he would write the Governor not to make any appointment until he could see him. On the 19th I went to Albany to see the Governor, taking with me Mr. Wm. A. Russell and letters from friends who desired my appointment. I saw Governor Horatio Seymour and Adjutant General John T. Sprague and got their promise of my appointment and three days after I received my Commission through the mail which was dated Feb'y 20th, with rank from Feb'y 4th, 1863, the date that Lieut. Elliott resigned. Captain Crary returned to the Regiment but said nothing about my promotion.

When I came home I employed Dr. John Lambert as my physician and at the expiration of my furlough he said I was not able to go back,- that it was not safe for me to do so and I made an application for an extension of time but did not hear from it and on March 21, 1863, he gave me a certificate of my disability as follows:

This certifies that I am a physician, that I have been attending Robert Cruikshank, Sergeant in Company H, 123rd Regiment, N. Y. S. Vols., who has been and is now laboring under debility consequent upon recent fevers contracted in Camp and he now has enlargement of the liver and spleen which has been attended with ascites (dropsy of the belly) and which in my opinion has made it unsafe for him sooner to return to duty. And I further certify at his request during his illness I made application for an extension of his furlough given for thirty days about the first of February, 1863.

Sworn to before me this 23rd day of March, 1863.

John Lambert, M. D.

W. B. Bool

Justice of Peace.

The above John Lambert, M. D., is known to the undersigned as a physician in regular standing.

W. B. Bool

Justice.

On the 24th day of March, 1863, with this certificate and my commission in my jacket I started to join the Regiment which was then at Stafford, Va. I returned as soon as I was able to travel, and did not stay the full thirty days that I had made application for as an extension of my furlough. I could not understand why I did not hear from it and if disallowed I could show why I did not return at the expiration of the thirty days. When I got to Cambridge Captain Abram Reynolds of the Greenwich Company came into the cars. He was also returning to the Regiment having been home on a leave of absence, so I had company all of the way.

I stopped in New York a few hours and purchased some uniforms which I expected to need when I got to the Regiment. We arrived in Washington on the morning of the 25th about eight o'clock ,- too late for the boat to Acquia Creek which left at 7 o'clock A. M. Acquia Creek Landing was about four miles from the Camp at Stafford. As there was but one trip made a day we had to remain in Washington until the next morning at 7 o'clock. The scenery down the Potomac River was beautiful. We passed Alexandria and Mount Vernon, which were interesting to me. The distance down the river was about forty miles. We arrived in Camp about noon and I found quite a change in the Company since I left it. Lieutenant Elliott was gone, George Sweet had died in Camp two miles from the present Camp on February 4th and Martin Dunlap at this Camp February 25, 1863. There were many sick in hospitals and some on detached service so the Company was quite small. In one of my letters from Harpers Ferry Hospital I wrote that I had received letters from the Company and that they were quartered in a Camp of log huts that had been vacated by a former regiment. This Camp was located in a hollow with hills on either side and at that time of year when there was considerable snow and rain the ground was very wet and the mud was deep so it did not dry off, which made it very unhealthy and the water was bad and many sickened and died and it was thought advisable to move the Camp to a healthier location, so on the 4th of March, 1863, the Camp was moved about two miles onto high ground where there was plenty of wood and good water. Comfortable log huts were built, Company streets were drained and kept clean and everything was in good order when I arrived.