Things have moved pretty quickly.  The company moved out last week 
by riverboat.  We traveled down river to Galveston, where we met up 
with the artillery group that will garrison the forts we are going 
to build.  We also had a couple of platoons of engineers assigned 
to go with us.  All of us loaded on the Texas Star, a one hunnerd 
foot side paddle wheeler.  The Star took us to the Sabine and tied 
up a couple of miles upstream where the river narrows and there are 
some low bluffs.  

Right off the Company fell under the command of Captain Koch. That's 
how he spells his name but it's said like cook.  He's an engineer 
feller from Houston who will design and build the fort.  First thin 
we did was to lay in temporary gun enplacements by digging mortar 
pits and building up the sides and front with cypress logs.  The 
artillary company has three twelve inch mortars.  They will throw a 
cast iron ball a mile or so with good acuracy I'm told.  Construction 
on the fort has begun with diggin trenches in front of the bluff and 
to the sides.  We have also put sharpened stakes laced with black 
locus limbs around the outside. Them things has two inch thorns all 
over them.  It'll give any yankee who touches them a few scratches 
before we ever fire a shot fer sure!

This place ain't healthy.  Ain' nothing here but cypress swamps, 
skeeters, and redbugs.  Most of the time, if we dig much deeper than 
five feet, we're diggin mud.  It's hot and wet.  If you do put on dry 
clothes, they're wet in a couple of minutes.  To top off everything, 
disentery has already started in the camp.  The Captial has the 
Company boilin all of the water, and has had latrines dug a couple of 
hunnerd yards downstream.  That has helped us a lot, and most of the 
sickness is in the artillery boys' camp.  Food is a problem.  The 
salt beef and pork sent with us as rations has mostly already rotted 
from the heat and wet.  

The Captian has detailed four of the better shots to hunt fer game, 
and has bought some cows in Anahuac with his own money.  We're eatin 
better now, but the buscuits still has weavels.  The hard-tack holds 
up pretty well as it is sealed in tin.  The darn stuff is so hard 
though that the only way to eat it is to crush it and soak it overnight 
in some of the milk from the cows.  It makes a sort of puddin that's 
eatable.  Don't know what we'll do in the winter when we can't get 
fresh vegetables.  Right now some of the men have planted a late 
vegetable garden. We won't get much from it but greens, okra, and 
radishes, but they help. May be this winter, we'll get turnips and 
greens if we don't have an early frost.

Heard from Elizabeth today.  She got Mrs. Prusser to writ me a letter.
Seems that everything is fine so fer.  A couple of the deacons have 
come over to help her and Deacon Jones sends his fourteen year old boy 
to help. I wrote Paw askin him to bring the family here and help with 
the farm, but ain't heared from him yet.  I sure miss my family.  Seems 
like my heart's gonna break at times if I don't get to see them.  I 
don't know if I can stand bein away from them very long.  A lot of the 
men feel the same as me. They've had me write home for them, and the 
letters they have got are much the same as mine.  The women folk tell 
us everything's OK and to be good soldiers.  All of them seem to be 
getting help on the farms if they need it and those with older sons or 
fathers at home have split their time between the farms so's everyone 
gets helped.  

I gotta get some sleep now, we're goin to be diggin again tomorrow.  I 
wish the pick-axe and the shovel had never been thought up.  I ever find 
the man who invented them, I'm a gonna whup him good!