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May the 16th, 1864;
Dear cousin: It is with the greatest of pleasure that I do take pen in hand to inform you that I am well at present and I hope when these lines come to hand may find you enjoying the same blessing.
I lay down last night and laughed pretty near all night and got up this mornin with a double stamp resolution and feel as happy as a nightingale 16 degrees above the sky. Times are good here, I expect we will be laid off in a few days and of course what little I get will be sent home as soon as I get it. You must do the best you can I can not be with you although you are dear to me and sight of you all will be great to me. You must be satisfied
for I am all right. If I had my choice today, stay here or go home, under the circumstances I give you the honor of a friend, I would prefer staying. I am better satisfied now and have been so ever since I left home than ever I was for three years before. I am in better health now than I have been for nearly five years. I am out of one thing and into another and I am glad that I am away from home and in the regiment.
I am a soldier for Uncle Sam and I will obey and stay with his men
as Long ag it suits me if that is till I am gray. I used to long to
come home but I found that was not making the thing gay. I call myself a rebel router and in the confederate country I stay. Use my girl tender
if you please and be sure you do it as well as I would treat or ought to treat myself.
Remember we are a nation that have been greatly oppressed and our kind President is making slow but a sure effort to Open up the way for us and my dear cousin, it is a glorious blessing and a great many others are engaged in this glorious undertaking and all people of our
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color ought to be happy and give our noble President all the praise that the tongue could express and every other individual that is now engaged in our cause.
You are supposed to be up and a-doing, nor idle and waste time and
I am certain you will not waste your money. Your friends are watching for your your appearance of improvement.
You all must move, there is no excuse for you whatever
The white people said the colored people could not drill; now we
have proven it that we can drill as good as any other nation on the globe. Now prove to them that you can prove and show them something else,
We are yet on the foley (?) is land.
The boys are all well and doin well. Give my love to the friends as soon as you get this and see this report. You must give three cheers for the fortune that happened in our regiment our Sergeant John F. Shorter of Ohio (?) is promoted Second Lieutenant - huraw, huraw, huraw.
No more at present.
John Posey of the 55th Massachusetts regiment. Company great big D.
To Mathias Embry.
