[“With the Colors”]
[YMCA]
7/2/’18
Dear Mary:
I received your letter last evening, and will answer it as soon as I can find the
time. I am not going to make a real letter out of this as I have two or three others which I
feel I must answer this evening.
I am always glad that you confide in me your worries and secrets. I probably
cannot answer them or solve them for you, but am willing to give an opinion when I have
one.
We will finish our work here this week. I do not imagine that we will be sent out
immediately. They will probably keep us here a week or two to do K.P., guard, etc.
Our company are to march to Augusta and parade there on the Fourth. I am not
anxious for such a march. It is about four or five miles from the camp to town. I do not
think I will have to march down as I am to be on guard that night. I prefer to walk a post
for two or three hours of the night to taking a march that distance. When on guard, or
rather the time we are off during the night we are guarding, we sleep with all our clothes
on except our hat. That is not so bad in the Army. I can throw myself down on a cot
without any straw and sleep sounder than I did in a good bed at home. We sleep on the
canvass of the cot without straw or mattress because they say that is the most sanitary.
And Mary, you will probably not believe me when I tell you I never had a bed I enjoyed
so much. It is very pleasant to sleep in tents in the Summer. We keep the sides rolled up
all the time when it is not raining. They cool off so quickly in the evening, and it is
almost like sleeping outside. There is nothing like weariness to make one sleep. It is
agreeing with me physically for I have a wonderful apetite [sic] and have gained ten or
twelve pounds since I came here. I imagine I am gradually perspiring away, but
whenever I get weighed I find I am heavier than the time before. Tell Morgan that he
need not worry about my getting enough to eat. We have fine eats now and do not hear
of war bread or those things you have to contend with at home. I wish you could see our
Sunday dinners—chicken, turkey, ice cream (a quart if you can eat that much), etc. I ate
until I was in misery last Sunday. I will explain our eats being poor at first. You see we
organized our company here, starting with a clean slate. Each soldier is allowed fortyone cents per day to board him. If they run over that amount the company commander is
responsible for the extra amount. To make himself safe, a new company is fed sort of
light until it can collect a mess fund. Our company created a mess fund of between
thirteen and fourteen hundred dollars in about four or five weeks. That means, that in the
beginning we got along on much less than forty-one cents per day. Now, our eats are fine
because we are trying to eat up our forty-one cent ration and the mess fund in addition
before the company is disorganized.
I think I shall go to Augusta tomorrow evening to a little feed at one of the hotels
for members of the Alumni of Pittsburgh University. I am going down to another on
Saturday evening for the attorneys of our company. There will be a pretty large
attendance at both.

I was glad to hear that Mabel Atkinson got the Prosperity school. I am sure
Cary’s will like her if they room and board her. Must close, as they said mail would
leave in five minutes.
A fairly decent length letter, at that.
Your brother,
Guy