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File: 14JUL65.doc Since I wrote you
last I have had a sort of poor spell and I laid up till I was really strong enough to
write & do such like things. You can see
my hand is not very steady yet. I will give
you a short account of my sickness. I had not
been very well for a month or so and had been running down so that when I was taken sick I
had but very little strength. On the 25th day
of May I was taken down. The first week I
seemed to have a complication of diseases. The
second it settled into the typhoid and there for two weeks I knew nothing. Then the fever gave way but I was so low that no
one hardly thought I could get up. When my
fever broke a Mrs. McDonald who used to live at Maukan sent down word to have me brought
of there. So they took my tent & things
up there and the boys carried me up in my bunk. It
was about three fourths of a mile from camp and with Mrs. McDonald, Mr. Reed & Pepper
I had the best of care. The Surgeon too is
one of the best physicians and men I ever saw. During
all my sickness I have not been in a room and it is to plenty of fresh air and the good
nursing I received after my fever broke that I attribute my recovery. Just think Sarah of
my sleeping with the tent raised two feet from the ground at the head of my bunk and the
front of the tent all open so that I lie and look right out on the stars. So I have slept all the time. I have not taken any cold during the whole time. I sleep with my drawers & woolen stockings on
and a sheet & one woolen blanket over me. The
nights are very cool here. It is very hot in
the day but as soon as the sun goes down it begins to grow cool. There are no mosquitoes here. I am gaining my strength slowly but as fast as I
could expect I suppose. To day I feel much
stronger that I have since I began to get well. I
have to be very careful not to overdo on account of a relapse. A relapse in my weak state would be fatal. My general health, all except strength is better
than it was before I was sick. I have no
Dyspepsia, no biliousness. I am thoroughly
cleaned out. All I want now is strength and
the time and eating alone will bring. It was
very fortunate for me I had no whiskey in my system.
If I had I should have gone up the spout.
I suppose you are
disappointed in my not coming home. But when
you come to think a moment you will see how much better for me it is not to come. I should have to stage it to Leavenworth over rough
roads & rivers 125 miles and I am not now able to stand the fatigue. The railroad is then very rough till you get to
Chicago and when I got home I could stay only about twenty days. For the longest I could possibly get a furlough
for would have been thirty days and it would take ten days to go and come at least. Besides it would cost me sixty dollars to go and
come and the paymaster would have deducted one half from that thirty days pay which would
have been about seventy five dollars more. But
the Surgeon would not consent to it so there is no use for explaining. How are things in
Omro. Do you have plenty of strawberries this
year. How do the apple trees look. Do any of them bear. How is that nice cherry tree east of our bedroom. How does the wood hold out. How do Alf and Hattie get along. Give them my regards. I wish you would say to William I will write him
as soon as I get a little stronger. How is
Lang's health and what is he doing. H ow is
your health and Lill's. I am so glad Lill is
healthy and so good. I have heard that it is
quite dull in Omro this summer. Is it so. I shall not stay there much longer. We should starve to death. I hope to have a little money when I get back and
I shall not invest it in Omro. We are all
looking for the Paymaster. We have not yet
got a cent of Pay. I want to send you some
money. Are you not wholly out. Was the policy all fixed. My sheet is out and my strength nearly so, so good
bye Dear Sarah. Write as often as convenient.
Charlie |