Ringgold Barracks, Texas,
July 28, 1863.
Dear Sister L.:—
I have just time to drop you a line before the mail goes, to say that I arrived safely at the end of my long tedious march, through the strangest country and oddest people you or I ever saw. By and by, when I have leisure, I have lots of material for letters.
I was appointed Post Quartermaster immediately on my arrival, and I have been so busy that I have not had time to eat my meals half the time since.
We have a large post and plenty of business, but it is rather a hard country to live in, I should say. Nothing in the way of vegetables to eat can be had, and we have to drink the Rio Grande mud, and are glad to get that.
A line is all I can write. You must take the will for the deed and make up by writing often to me.
Colonel Lyon’s Letters.
Green Lake, Tex., July 28, 1865.—The corps gets here very slowly, and we can not get away from here for some days, perhaps not in two or three weeks, and by that time the order sending us so far into the interior may be countermanded. Indeed, we hear a rumor that we are only to go to Victoria, some 25 miles inland from this point, but the rumor is not very reliable. We are fitted up now so that we are very comfortable, except that we can not get enough decent food.
The Major reached us on Monday night last. He and I are in the same tent. I have a bunk and mosquito bar over it and sleep very comfortably. Before we got fitted up I lay on the ground outside and a sudden shower one night soaked me to the skin. We have but few flies here. The boys kill lots of alligators two or three miles from camp. Time hangs heavily on my hands, and did I not expect to make one of the dear home circle so soon I should be unhappy.
