To his wife Emma. Re: "..I am still quite weak which makes me think of my fainting when I came from Va..."; "..What I do every day..."; "..I get, or presume will some day get, the same pay one of Brown's brigadiers gets - Eleven dollars per month."; "Yes, I belong to the Militia. When they disband I shall be footloose."; "...What the Yankees ask for their jewelry....One of my med. mates bought a heavy plain gold ring for twelve dollars."; "How many prisioners...well there are just about as many brought in as die...there are about thirty thousand prisioners. Every ten days we bury about a thousand, making just about three thousand a month..."; "If there is more than one female prisioner she keeps herself undiscovered...There is one here whoe seems...a very nice woman. Her husband is a prisioner and they were both captured in N.C. She refused to be separated..."; "Twenty-one prisioners...paroled Yankees, were sent North to insist on exchange."; "Have any of the prisioners been hung and do they fight much? Yes, both."; "We have an excellent sixteen square foot tent.."; "The balance of my men love beef's liver, brains, heart, tripe, etc. which I can not eat."; "[Percy]He's a great boy. Wonder if he would like to come here. I have thought that I would like to keep him with me for a while. But such a thing unless he were larger, might be inconvenient. Kiss the boys for me and aks them to kiss Mother for father."
Part of a series of letters written by Dr. John McKinney Howell to his wife Emma B. (Heard) Howell while he served in the Confederate Army as a doctor at Andersonville Prison. Transcribed and typed by Betty Howell Traver. Original letters donated by B. H. Traver to the University of Georgia.