LETTER FROM HIS BROTHER

Demopolis, Alabama S. 1871

Dear John,

       I rather expect that you had given up any idea that you would ever hear from or see me again, but I hope you will get this, and it is not at all unlikely but that you will see me sometime next year.  I left home in March 1869 and after a very bad time on the water got to New York.  Since then I have been knocking about the States pretty roughly.  I have been all through the north and most of the South.  I have been here in Alabama the last 12 months.  I wrote home for the first time since I left, in September last and have just got an answer to my letter.  They tell me that you and your family are well and doing well.  I am very glad to hear it. They tell me that Mother is dead which grieves me very much for she was always a good mother to me and I have the most reason to feel her loss.  Fanny tells me that you are farming, that you have four children, if you have a boy I hope you have not named him Charley for there is bad luck in the name.  However I am doing pretty well here.  I am on a stock farm with no harder work than riding which suits me very well.  I expect to leave here in the Spring and go to Texas.  I have had an offer on a Stock Ranch there to tend Stock for a sixth of the increase from the time I settle there.  The owner has about twelve hundred head.  I have been to New Orleans with horses last month, about 300 miles from here, and am getting ready to send some fat cattle to Mobile next week.  I should like you to write to me and let me know what sort of chance I should have if I come out to your country.  I meant what sort of chance to make money.  I don't intend to stay in America more than 2 years at the farthest then I shall go home and I should like to see you before I went so that if you write me favorable I will make you next fall and be with you before Christmas.  I write home by the next mail, give my love to your wife and the little ones, and write me soon.  Your brother, Charley