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Regiment: 1st U.S. Volunteers Sharpshooters
Battles Mentioned:
Historical Figures: Jefferson Davis
Grand Rapids,
May 21st 1865.
Dear Gardie.
My Darling Husband.
I sent a letter
to the office for you this noon, but as I
received yours of the 17
th with a paper of
the same date I thought I could afford
to write a little more to my boy. A little
more than a month you have been gone
and it seems an age. How I do wish I could
see you to night. How much just an hour
would be worth to us. Would it not?
I long for just one kiss from your loving
kips. What happiness ‘twould be.
The something in your letter came safe.
Thank you. My health is much better
than it was the first two and three
weeks you was gone. If I did not get
tired so very easy I should think I was
quite well most of the time. I look much
better than I did.
I dreamed of you last night. I thought you
had just come home and was holding me
in your arms how happy I was. then to
wake and find it all a dream. do you
remember one year ago to morrow. we
were up to Sarahs and went fishing.
Mrs. Peppard was in here to day. she says she
will never believe that Jeff Davis
was taken in womans clothes. Dont you
remember my asking you one day a short time
before you went away. if you ever knew Ellen
Lynch a girl who used to work for mother and
afterwards married Frank Dren. and saying
that Mrs Peppards girl looked like her? it
is her, her husband enlisted nearly three
years ago, and last fall his name was in the
list of missing after a battle. and as she heard
nothing more she supposed he must be dead.
and she came down here and went to work
night before last she received a letter from him
saying that he was wounded in the battle &
had been a prisoner all this time. and were
now on his way home. I saw her yesterday and
I do not know that I ever saw any one who
seemed to feel quite so happy as she did. she
hardly knew what to do with herself. she is a
real good girl and is quite young yet. only
twenty=four. Mrs. Peppard expects Mr P-
home to stay all summer. May 22
nd
Good morning Gardie it is a beautiful
morning and I will finish my letter
and go to work.
I shall comence your shirts to-day.
Love & Kisses you darling Wify.
[On Envelope:]
Lt. Gardner B. Clark.
6th Regt. 1st A.C.
Washington
D.C.
