In Camp at London Tenn.
22 March 1864.
Dear Brother Frank:

Day before yesterday, I received yours of the 14th inst. For some considerable time past I have awaited a letter from you and wondered why it came not, but that you have been marching explains the delay. I have been anxious to hear from you on Sammy’s account. I vainly hoped to hear of his whereabouts through you. I can get nothing definate about him. About a month ago he was in Springfield. We have received the description rolls of some 14 or 15 recruits and only three of them have arrived at the Battery. Some of these have been a month and a half on the road and one young man – you knew him, E.W. Gower, died in Indiana on his way to our company. I wish Sammy could get here. It is ten fold harder and more unpleasant for a new soldier to be knocking around in barracks than to go at once into the field to his company. The same mail in which your letter came, brought me a good long one from Mary. The people at home were will. All is quiet in this vicinity. We are preparing with all possible dispatch for the Spring campaign. We are temporarily in the Dept. of the Ohio: and the only Battery in this department that is equipped for marching and as a consequence, if there is a movement made soon in this section of the country, we will be called out. I hope that we may have from 30 to 60 days longer in which to prepare. It is quite difficuld to get the necessary equipments here. We are pretty well supplied with horses. Cousin James Murphy is now in Chattanooga, employed on the bridges there. He used to live in Grundy Co. Ill. call on him the first chance you. He will be glad to see you. I presume you remember Dick Martin who used to live in Pontiac: he is here working at the bridge. It is snowing rapidly now, and has fallen to the depth of two or three insches already. The weather has been unusually fine, for the season, all winter. In Marry’s letter I received a photograph of herself and Frankie. Mollie has changed perceptibly since I saw her last. How does Sergt. Yetter prosper? Give him my compliments the first time you see him. What company is Saml. McGooden in? Write me as often as convenient.

Afftly your Brother
Wm J Murphy