Martinsburg 
July, 20th /'63 
Dear Sister 
 I have been waiting for a long time for a letter from home.  The mail has just come in and still nothing for me.  I suppose that you thought that I had been taken prisoner with the rest of the company and consequently would not waste a sheet of paper nor allow one of your highly interesting epistles to be lost. 
 We moved from the camp that I last wrote from to Drakesville fifteen miles from Winchester, settled there a day or so (if only one could rest with dirty clothes and creeping ones too) 
 
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Johnson's Division. 
 This morning moved down here to destroy the Baltimore and Ohio R.R. which I suppose will take a day or so and then we will move back to our old camp where I think we will rest until Lee gets his army shod and clothed.  I still have on my only shirt or rather piece of a shirt.  Have had it on for over a month and there is no prospect of getting one shortly from the Quartermasters Dept. so I suppose I shall have to wait until I can get clothes from home.   
 
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I have written two letters for clothes but as they have perhaps miscarried I will try again.  I want a complete rigging out except a hat.  I also wrote for a box but since I have thought about it I suppose that there are not enough of men to justify Mr. Middleton coming down so I will not look for a box though one would be very acceptable.  But if it is possible send my clothes, (t a x u t a x i s t a) which in plain Dutch means (As quick as possible}.   
 
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 Yesterday I heard an excellent sermon from Mr. Lacy on Be ye not deceived, God is not mocked &c.  There is still a great deal of religious feeling in the army.  Oh, that this army was a bunch of Christian men, then we might indeed expect peace, no longer would we be punished by the fall of our cities and the repulse of our armies.  We have heard nothing from our boys who were captured at Gettysburg; hope they will soon be exchanged.  It is quite lonesome with those that are here.   
 Jones, Lyle, Sphor, Whitmore and myself have been going around like lost sheep.  Lyle, Sphor, and Whitmore were  
 
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not in the fight.  Jones was near the breastworks and escaped by running the risk of being shot and I was not quite so far up being on the rear guard which stays a short distance behind the regiment, 
Good bye 
Ted