Chimbaraso Hospital #1
Ward 1
Richmond  Virginia
September the 5  1863

Dear Brother,

I once more take my pen in hand to inform you that I am still nocking about as _____ and I hope when this comes to hand it will find you still well and your family.  Mat I have been a looking for a letter from you for 2 or 3 days, tho I have not got it yet.  Dear brother, I havt no news to rite this morning of any importants.  Mat, I heard that the yankis had Knoxville, Teenessee and was marching for Saltville, and I want you to let me no if it is so or not and Mat I want you to let me no what you intend to doo if they doo come.  Mat if I was you I wod stay with my famly and dy with them for I dont think that you nor me ought to fight for we did not have no hand in making it  I don't intend to do any fighting if I can help it for hear is those swell headed upshots that owns all the property and has keep out of the armmy all the while that I can hear them saying that we have done this and we have done that, and we have whipped the yankis hard and all this kind of thing and you no what they are up to all the time  If you don't I do  They ar speculating and making more of this rebelion money than they no what to do with and now they are giving 20 dollars of it for one dollar of gold or silver  How can they afford to do this  Why very easy for they have made so much that they dont no what to do with it  And how have they made all this money  Why they have mad it off the soldiers that is the field fiting for their (slaves)  And how have they made it off them?  They have made it by selling what the soldiers ought to of had.  They would go and press whatever they wanted, and pay the government price for it, and then sell it for 20 prices, and the government paid for these things and these speculators sell it and put the money in their pockets, and to ask them what we are fighting fro, they will say, "for our liberty that our forefathers gained for us."  I say it is a lie.  It is true they fought and gained our independence, and established a union and constitution, which was called the United States of America, and we have rebelled against the Union, and if you was to say you was a Union man you would be shot or put under arrest right short, and I say they are fighting against what our forefathers fought for, and anybody else that can see.  And the soldiers get eleven dollars a month, and how can a man that has a family support them?  It would not pay for more than one meal vituals for a small family, and what encouragement does a soldier have to fight under such a government as they have got in the Confederate States?  I tell you the poor soldiers gets poor encouragement to fight for.

Mat...everything looks like it is going on wrong since Jackson was killed, and I believe that we will at last have to come back in the Union at last, and I am sorry to think that all our hardships and fighting will do no good, for I was in hopes that we could gain our independence, tho I have lost all hopes, I don't think we will ever gain our independence as long as we fight or turned against my country for I am not, tho if they evacuate Virginia they will leave me unless they are very smart, and have plenty of guards and chains to keep in in the cars.

Mat...I want you to write as soon as this comes to hand, and give me all the news, and let me know if you got that letter that had another one in it, and if you gave it to them.  Give my love and best respects to all my inquiring friends, and stay at home as long as you can get the chance.

So I will bring my badly composed letter to a close, so nothing more,

Only remain your affectionate Brother until death

From B. M. Blackwell to Mathew R. Blackwell

I hope this cruel war will soon end.  So goodbye dear Brother for this time.