GOODELL FAMILY LETTERS- #37
 

Anson to Parents

Foster Hospital
Jan 18, [1864]

Dear Father –

            Yours of the 11^th inst. Came to hand today and met a cordial reception I assure you. My health I think is permanently improving and I hope to have no more downfalls. It is so far improved that I feel able to go back to the Co. and am expecting orders every day to pack up for Fortress Monroe.

            The Dr. said I might go after pay day but that time has come and gone and a number have been called to the Surgeon’s Office prepatory to being sent away but no order has come for me as yet. I intend to ask the Dr. tomorrow if an opportunity is offered if he is not ready to send me to the Regt. My health has improved more within a week than before for a long time and I feel better now than usual.

            I think I am well off now as though with the with the Regt. I am well enough to walk about town and take care of myself and within a couple of days I have been doing chores about the “ward” washing dishes – scouring knives – candle sticks etc. and bringing wood now and then.

            Do I write extravagant letters or why is it that you and Mother worry so much about me!

            True the climate does not agree with me when it is warm but now that the cold weather has come I feel a great deal better and hope to remain so. I am glad to say that I am better tonight than before for a whole year.

            There are some strong appearances that my liver is enlarging and becoming what is vulgarly termed “swell belly” but I have said nothing to the Dr. about it. I tell you Father I am getting “pussy” as an Alderman – or perhaps a “member of the House of Representatives.”

            How much do I weigh? Yesterday I went into a store and the proprietor made me weigh 144 ½ . Do you think I am very sick? I guess now you will think me an imposter as far as sickness is concerned. Well I have not been well and have plainly said so. And perhaps imagination has made you think worse than I really was.

            The box of which you speak I don’t want for I’ve no place to keep it in the hospital and it probably not get me in very good condition. Send it to Edwin if to either of us he will best appreciate it. I was sorry when informed that you intended sending me a box – It takes them so long to get here that it hardly pays to put you to the trouble necessary to send one. I am taking the place of a man here so I suppose the Dr. will not hurry me away long as I am doing something.

                                                                                    Good bye

                                                                                                Your son Anson

[Written on the perimeter of the pages]

The Dr. says I may go to the Co. so you need not write me again till you hear from me. It is quite as well for me to remain here because my quarters are so good – have just as good a bed as I could ask for. Edwin writes me very frequently and excellent letters too/ He is one of the kindest brothers. I wrote home a few days since sending twenty dollars of my pay just rec’d and Ed said he would leave twenty at home for me – the sum I paid for him when he went home before.