June 12th Dear Sister, we have received orders to cook all our

rations, strike tents very quietly, and be ready to move at any time.

I write for fear I may not have an opportunity again shortly, so if you do not receive letters

for some time, do not be uneasy.

You can still write regularly to me as we have a male carrier who brings our male to us.

I enclose my certificate of membership with the Church, which please give to Dr. White.

I am quite well and unprepared to move with the rest.

I think before you hear from me again, we will and all probability have had a battle.

I fear not the result, and confident that we, through God, will be victorious.

If you are not for my safety, God can protect me amidst the storm of battle, as well as at home.

And if I shall fall, I trust that I will go to a better world, and is that not gain?

Sergeant Alexander T. Barclay, Fourth Virginia Infantry, Stonewall Brigade, Yulescore.

June 22, 1863.

Bivowak on the road near Berryville, Clark County, Virginia.

Dear mother, I write a few lines, but don't know whether you will receive them or not.

But I hope you will, but it is a bad chance from here.

We have been on the march since yesterday a week ago, when we were ten miles below Fredericksburg.

We cross the Blue Ridge Mountains and the Rapidane, Rapahenic, and both branches of the Shenandoah River, North and South,

and are within twenty-one miles of the Potomac.

And I would take any amount for the trip with the most beautiful scenery I ever be held since I have been in the Army,

which is some time, you know.

It is supposed that we will go into Pennsylvania, and I hope we may.

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