The Civil War Letters Prince George, Bermuda Hundred, Virginia September 22, 1864

Headquarters Co E. 11th Pa Cav in the Feild
September 22d 1864

My Dear Wife

I received your kind letter yuesterday and i was glad to hear from you.  in fact you are the only one that i do hear from now.  Dear Maggie  in reading your last letter it makes me think of the amount of misery and unhappyness that i have caused you Since we have been married  i know that i done wrong in the first place when i enlisted  but i done you a greater wrong when i Excepted a commission and bound my Self for three more years.  i do not care for my self so much as i do for you  and i know that your Situation must be unplesent at home

Dear Maggie  i know that it is my duty to be with you.  and i can assure you that though i am So long away from you and i may appear so cool and Strange yet i love you with all the love a Husband can love a Wife.  and any object you have in veiw or anything you wish to do no matter what it is So that it pleases you it will please me.  and while i am in the army i will send you all the help i can.  Remember that you are your own Boss  i do not wish to Dictate to you but want you to have your own way for i know that you have both good Sence and judgement.  and i have all the confidence in the world in you for i know that you are good and will always do what is right.

Dear Maggie  you may think this a strange letter but sometimes when i take a spell of thinking i can see all the wrongs and missdeeds i have done.  but i hope that God will soon lift the cloud that now hangs over us and then perhaps the Sun will shine on us brighter then Ever  i hope so.

i have no news to add  we are still on Picket near Prince George Courthouse

i hope this will find you and Lizzie injoying the Very Best of health as it leaves me at present

I am as Ever
Your Affectionate Husband
William Lancaster

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