Your letter of March 4th reached me yesterday. I was very glad to hear from you and especially glad that you and the little girls were well and that you were not uneasy on account of the Yankee raids. Stallup’s furlough has just come and I will therefore have a chance to send my letter and so I have reasonable hopes that you will get it soon. Four of McConnell’s men among whom are William and John Beck have also got furloughs. Our generals are furloughing liberally now and if men will only be prompt to return, the system will be preserved. I am still suffering some with _______but getting your letter______ and the opportunity of writing now with good assurance of you soon getting the letter make me feel quite well. I have not much news to write, our boys are all well. Tom Stallcup and myself are the worst off of any and Tom will be able, I have no doubt, to go home. Baker and Fayette Campbell are both well and so fat they can’t hardly walk. As for Eb, I presume he will write by the Beck boys. I was not looking for Bonner to move away and so the news of it took me quite by surprise. I hope however, you will succeed in making a crop. I presume brother John is still with you though you did not say so. I enclose a note for him. Say to him also to do his best. Let Caroline help him, she shall not loose anything by it. I judge Childers will cultivate the corn field. Well, you did not say which Childers it was you had rented to, but I presume it is the old man. If Conner has not already done it, do your best to get the crop fenced between us and Martin built. If Martin gets to stay at home which I presume he will, as the law exempts a man having eight white persons in his family dependent on his labor for support, he ought to build a fence according to his contract. Urge him up especially to build his end of it, but if you can get anyone else to go to work don’t wait on him building any and (the one nearest to Conleys) first. You are doing perfectly right to spend some hard money this spring for grain. I hope we will never experience once a greater necessity than we now have.

Our cause seems to be improving still I do hope that our success this spring and summer maybe so-signal to our enemies to desist from their aggressions. I think we have gone far this winter to convince them of the utter hopelessness of their cause of course they can yet inflict much damage on us but it will be also attended with great ________and hopes to themselves while they can not much longer fail to see that we are not to be subjugated while we live and that the more of our property they destroy, the more of our homes they desolate and more of our lives they take, the more desperate and determined we become. Should they force us to it by sacking and plundering our country till we can no longer subsist our army will then have to invade theirs and the retribution would then be awful, but I hope things may not get so bad as that-- that they may desist and allow us to remain at home in peace. Tell all my frinds to hold out faithful, let us all be true to our country so long as we live. I hope that in the coming elections Holden and his part of buffaloes may get such a rebuke that they will never again dare to hold up their heads.

Give my love to Martha and Jesse, to your mother and sisters and brothers. Say to Tom and Joe to do their very best at a crop this year. Say to Tom and brother John both that we need them and all such boys much more in the field, than in the camps and this year has taught us the important lesson that farming interest must not be neglected. History will not fail to do___ to all ____ of our citizens and our boys under age who take the management of farms like men while the men are under arms and performing as valuable services any any among us and in reality fighting much more effectually there than they could anywhere else....and my advice to them is when they feel like helping their country, to go to digging with all their might, every ear of corn they raise is a bullet shot at the Yankees. As soon as they are of the proper age, I say for them to go.

My respects to all inquiring friends. Write to me as often as YOU can, you can’t imagine how glad it makes one to get a letter from you. You have improved somewhat in the length of your letters too for which you will accept my thanks and an extra kiss When we meet. I think I will get to see you sometime this summer. I am pretty sure i can get a furlough then  as that is a thing I have never yet asked for nor received.

Kiss Mollie and Sallie for me. Don’t let them forget me. I have my ambrotype (photograph) taken with my beard would send it to you but Stallcup is almost loaded down. I will send it some other time. A hundred kisses for you my dearest. May the Lord bless and preserve you.

Jas. W Terrell