Letter, Granville W. Belcher to Mary Caroline Belcher; 17 April 1864

              April the 17 1864
Camp Chickehoming, fifteen miles east of Richmond
My Dear Mary,
I received you kind welcome letter of the many dates. Perhaps the ninth of April was the last of it. I was verry to here that you was so unwell. If you are not able to walk you must not walk. Take good care of youself if you can. That is my earnest request. I will do the best I can for myself. That is my motto. You can be assured of that Caroline. You wanted to know what they done with me. I cant tell you yet. My sentence has not bin red out yet. It will be red out in a short time I reckon if we can stay in camp a while linger. I am expecting marching orders as soon as the weather gets settle a little more. I surpose they expect to have the hardest struggle of the ware this comeing campeign. Lee thincks this yere will end & so does Grant. The swelled heads say if the Yankees whips Lee's army of northern VA we will gone up. I think we are done grn up now if they would think so two if I had to fair like we pore soaldiers do. We get bread anoughf to do verry well as to bread for the last six days. We have drawn coffee & shugar. One spoonful of shugar for the day, forty grains of coffee for the day. I have bin laying up my coffee for the last two weeks. The first chance I get I am going to send you my little handful of coffee. Then you can see for youself how little we have to live on here. Coffee is not good