Foster, Joseph Milton, to parents, 17 Nov 1863

Foster, Joseph Milton, Private, Co. F, 37th Massachusetts Infantry, USA, to parents. Writing from near Culpepper Courthouse, VA, Foster's company is again under the designation "Army of the Potomac." His parents have been complaining that he doesn't write often enough to them, and he counters by pointing out that they haven't been writing to him. "Father, I wish I could please you in every respect," Foster writes, "...but we hant all alike nor we don't all think alike." He mentions the "little fight" at Rappahannock Station, VA, where his company wasn't engaged "but we was in line waiting for the word, the shells come close to us, we could hear it all." They saw the rebel prisoners afterward and "they looked just as they did before... they were gray backs then and they are now but they don't fight half so well as they used too." Foster is pleased that his brother Edward has enlisted and he thinks he will have an easier time because he believes the worst of the fighting is over ("I hope he wont see as hard times as I have").