Kentucky
Dec. the 9, 1861


Dear Mrs. Manurva Aston:

By the help of God this morning I can inform you by the pen that I
and Bob is in good health which I thank our Maker for his mercies extended
towards us and I hope that he will bless you and all of the children with
good health until the time comes that I may return home to you again.

Manurva, I would be very glad to see you all. that is a matter of
course altho' I am very well satisfied here, more so than I expected to be.
I enjoy myself finely. All the dread that is on my mind is I am afeared
that you and the children will not keep well and that you will suffer
yourself too much uneasiness abut us.  Manurva, don't suffer yourself to
see any more uneasiness about us than you possibly can help for we are
honestly doing well. If I knew that you were doing as well I would be
satisfied. I have not got any letter from any of you in some time. The last
one I got from any of you was dated the 10th of last month which is one
month ago tho' I feel just like that I will get one today. We have daily
mails here. I don't know whether you get any letters from us or not but I
write one every week myself and Bob writes some.

We have moved since I wrote you last but we have not moved more
than three miles.  We have got across the Cumberland River tho' the thole
brigade is not across yet. They will all get across in a day or two and
then I think we will march on. We are throwing up breast works across the
bend of the river so if we have to retreat back that we can get in behind
our breast works in the bend of the river and the Yankees can't get to us
at all for we can keep them out. We are now in one mile of where the
Yankees was 4 days ago. As soon as we commenced crossing the river they
retreated in double quick in the night. The same night that we commenced
crossing they retreated back about 14 miles to Sumerset. Would not be much
surprised that they have left Sumerset this morning.

For our cavalry only 300 of them went up there yesterday and run in
their cavalry pickets and run on their infantry pickets and attached them
and killed 13 of them and taken 17 prisoners and brought them in to our
camp last night a little after dark. They have taken them to headquarters
this morning. I have not heard yet what they have done with them tho' they
will not turn them loose I don't think. The prisoners all say they belong
to the 27th Ohio Regiment.

Our cavalry run right up in to their camps. They took one man
inside of their guard line and while they were forming the line of battle
our cavalry wheeled about and got away. That was a tolerable bold step.
They run in on them on a surprise. If they had all of our cavalry and went
they say they could have taken every one of them. They say they did not
look like there was not more than three or four thousand of them. The
prisoners say there is about five thousand of them. We have about 2
thousand cavalry here and there is 700 more that has not come, yet.

9:00 A.M. - We did not get nary man killed in the scrummage
yesterday and but one wounded. He was shot through the thigh but did not
break it. He killed the man that shot him. He killed him after he was taken
a prisoner. We had nary one taken prisoner. We had 3 horses killed and
several wounded.

I am of the opinion yet that we will not get any fight yet only by
the scurmishing parties unless we go to Lexington or Louisville. I think
they will all retreat back to them two points. Bucker has whipped them out
at Bolling Green and got that in our possession.

We have had the warmest and pleasantest winter that I nearly ever
saw. It is warm enough here now to go in our shirtsleeves. There is as many
changes here in the weather as I ever saw at home.

I will just say to all of the friends of the boys that is out here
that they are all well and enjoy themselves finely. They are not near as
bad homesick as they were two months ago. Tell all of my friends to write
to me for I like to read a letter from any of them. I am busy here
nearly all of the time that I can't write to all of them.

Manurva, give my respects to all of the friends and reserve a good
portion for yourself so farewell, my dear.

A. M. Aston