Camp in the Pines near Culpepper VaApr 10th 1864My dear Wife-

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I received yours of the 5th this morning it having been left by mistake at Division Head Quarters last night. I am very sorry poor like Kittie suffers so much from her cough but I am in hope that it wont last long. If the medicine I prescribed does them any good continue to give it.

How little it takes to make children happy. I suppose they would be [] with the letter but I did not have the [] idea that they would be so much pleased with it I feel amply rewarded for the trouble of writing it and [] myself to write more.

You ask why I do not write more for the paper? The fact is I do not like to write articles for the press unless I have got something to say that be interesting and instructive. I hesitated some time about sending the first article for fear that it might prove [] and []. But as I find material for writing I shall probably have some articles

for publication. There are so many correspondents for home papers, and some extremely flat that I dislike to place myself in the light of a newspaper correspondent.

I regret very that I wrote in so sad a strain in my last letters, but I felt as I wrote []. You would not have [] appear what I am not. The weather has been horrid all the month till this morning the sun rose to an unclouded sky, and every tree was alive with the [] of the forest, and made the air melodious with their sweet songs. There is a richness in their music that I never expressed in the [] system of our more [] alive. All nation send to class his hand with joy and gladness as the God of day presented him self in all his splendor to their admiring gaze. The tiny blue violet laughed with delight as she turned her mild blue eye to [] his glacial rays, send her system [] with a [] of joy. The modest daffadilla bury her head and shook her golden yellow locks over her face, are homage to the sun god.

The grass seemed to stuck itself up to get an early audience with the king of day. Man & beast were sensibly influenced by this wonderful season. But a change has come over the spirit of our dream. The sky has been darkened & rain has just commenced falling, and now while I write (3 oclock) P.M. I can hardly see my lines.

But with this change in the elements there is not a [] pending change in my feelings. I am feeling good, and one thing that makes me feel so well is the dear good letter I got this morning The only fault I have to find write your letters they are not half long enough, just as I become deeply interested there is the end. You cant say I dont write you long letters to say nothing about their goodness.

I am very much pleased with Helens style of writing. The composition is fine, and she improves every time she write, encourage her to continue to write, and I will endevor to answer all her letters. There is no school for improvement in composition as letter writing and to be a good letter writer is no mean accomplishment. Does Helen write

for the school paper and if so, ask her if they allow any foreign correspondence?

I did not write a letter to you last week. I was out on picket duty, and when I returned to camp I did not feel much like writing and had a thousand little things to look after besides. This changing camps always [] a great deal of extra work for me. But I manage to get along with it.

I am glad that Baker & Cutting were so favorably impressed with the appearance of my []. They saw every thing as it appears every day the year round. I have no sunday garb, not show for visitors different than for myself. I know you feel proud of any thing that gives me [] and that is our moving power the great motive for my this acting - is to meet your approbation.

What can I for all the world beside if I but meet your approval and the approval of my own concious? When I write again I shall give you some very interesting items, in regard to the character [] life of the middle class of Virginia &. Give my love to the children, and accept 1000's for your dear self. I must write another letter to the children to day If so little makes them happy I should be responsible to neglect doing so

Your affectionate husbandJ.C. Rutherford

I am sorry to learn that Mrs Sargent is so ill - hope it not prove serious. See her and give her my love.