DIY History | Transcribe | Civil War Diaries and Letters | Wise-Clark family papers, May-July 1865

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1865-05-14-Page 04

quite pleasant you know to ride out every evening. It might possibly be that we would be stationed some where, where I can find "Somebody" to ride with me. It will be a nice joke on the colored population if they send us down to Mexico. Our Surgeon and one Lieut are from Illinois. Several of the officers are Kentuckians, are all first rate fellows. I am making my calculations on having very pleasant times while I stay in the Service- if we get our commissions and everything all right. I have Soldiered nearly three years for 16 dollars per month in time of war- now I think I have a right to try it awhile in time of Peace at a hundred and twenty five or fifty dollars per month. The folks at home dont have as much to say against me going into the "colored Service" as I expected they would. I expect to be a farmer again when I quit Soldiering perhaps it would have been better for me in the long run to have got out of the Service as soon as I could and "Settled down to the Sober realities of a farmers life" Expect I am in the "Stream" now and will go on where ever the current carries me. Would like to take about a five years peep into the future. dont know that I would be any better off though If I should have that privilege, one of our men died yesterday. I had to make out an Inventory of his effects and Final Statements to forward to the Adjt Genl Office [Husting?] A.D.C.. This is the second man we have lost.

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quite pleasant you know to ride out every evening. It might possibly be that we would be stationed some where, where I can find "Somebody" to ride with me. It will be a nice joke on the colored population if they send us down to Mexico. Our Surgeon and one Lieut are from Illinois. Several of the officers are Kentuckians, are all first rate fellows. I am making my calculations on having very pleasant times while I stay in the Service- if we get our commissions and everything all right. I have Soldiered nearly three years for 16 dollars per month in time of war- now I think I have a right to try it awhile in time of Peace at a hundred and twenty five or fifty dollars per month. The folks at home dont have as much to say against me going into the "colored Service" as I expected they would. I expect to be a farmer again when I quit Soldiering perhaps it would have been better for me in the long run to have got out of the Service as soon as I could and "Settled down to the Sober realities of a farmers life" Expect I am in the "Stream" now and will go on where ever the current carries me. Would like to take about a five years peep into the future. dont know that I would be any better off though If I should have that privilege, one of our men died yesterday. I had to make out an Inventory of his effects and Final Statements to forward to the Adjt Genl Office [Husting?] A.D.C.. This is the second man we have lost.