Morganza La. July the 28th/64 Lizzie Dear Companion today is fine & cool & nice & pleasent & realy evry thing looks charming I am well & harty except a pain in the head which is casd I think by late riding of nights all is quiet here with exception of some rumors of a atack here by rebels which I think groundless night befour last at midnight I was awakend & told to be redy immeaditly to start I sprang from my bunk sadeld my horse put on my briches & shoes & spurs got my catreg box lookt at my revolver to sea if it was all rite got my gun & sprang in the sadel & was off with 49 others I new we was goin down the river for the telegraph wier had bin cut & of corse it had to be fixt so the wagon with some wier & other litle fixings in it having come we started down the river we traveld til day light which found us at the first plase which had wier cut 12 milds away we fixt it & went on sun up found us at waterlou thare it was torn down I got some milk from a lady who inquierd very partikular of me if we would burn down the houses of the pepal living along thare I told her know but I expected that they would pay for it is some way which was soon proven by a lot of soldiers in the garden taking watermellons cucumbers & so she rared around & wanted me to make them quit I told her to be quiet that a few vegatables would not hurt a soldier she said that them green watermellons would mak them sick we then went on & found no more dameg don til we got to Port Hudson thare the Lieutenant & me crost the river in a sciff & got som bread & meat & oats for our selves & horses & if I had bin fixt up with a darker shirt I would have had my photograph taken but did not & so we came back to camp we got here at 12 P last night then som of the boys told me the mail had come so I after unsadling my horse & feeding him went in to my tent lit a candle & find 3 letters laying on the box that suplide the plase of a table one from Eliza Carey one from J B Ashby & one from you & so as you lay the patern of writing short letter I must aqueess & so by subscribing my self your true frend & lover I acnoleg to be yours M A Hooker Patrick J. Anderson http://worldconnect.genealogy.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?db=patanderson 9654 Baltimore Avenue, Laurel, Maryland 20723