University of Virginia Library

Your letter was
received yesterday evening.
I had mailed one to you in the
morning. I have had very little
opportunity to make the inquiries you
wish. I have been on road detail
to day (making corduroy road to
Guinney's[2]) and have to go again to
morrow, so you see it will be
impossible to go to Guinney Station
before Monday, if indeed I can go then.
I suppose you were led to believe, that
large profits could be made on skillets
from having heard us speak of having to pay
12 or 15 dollars for one. If you could get
that price, it would pay very well, but
I do not think you could get it; unless
you could get them to the different
brigades of the army and sell them there,
in which case, I think they would bring
12 dols'. The sutlers [3] of regiments do not

buy them at all, so far as I can hear, unless
they get orders for them. As for the
Sutlers at the Station, I can not speak
positively, but think they act in the same
way. The day you went up, McKee [4] failed
to get one, but got the promise of one soon, if
he would leave 10 dols, his name etc, which
he would not do. However I am of the
opinion that you might sell them there
for 8 dollars apiece, in lots of 20, or 30,
and it might be as many as 60.
I think there would be no risk in you
staying a few days, at the Station. But you
know there is no accomodation there, and no
place to keep them. I got the box that night.
It was a treat, I tell you, but you will know that
after the sight of it. The coffee is delicious.
McKee got his furlough next day and started
in about an hour. John D. got his too,
and went Monday. I want you to send me a
tin plate by him. If you buy skillets, you
ought to do it at once while the army is
lying quiet. A good many soldiers have been courtmartialed
in the brigade. Several were publicly whipped today, and
four others .
Haven't heard the sentences of the Killians[5].