SOLDIERS' LETTERS.

     Letters are the soldier's tonic. They will strengthen and restore when army grub and other restoratives, duly proportioned, wholly fail. The blues and all kinds of contagious diseases to which mortals are heir, caused by idleness and the lack of proper diversion of the mind, are soon uprooted by a good interesting letter from a fellow's most affectionate. Give soldiers full rations and regular mail, then there can nowhere be found a more rational set of men than they. But letters are sometimes like our crackers and pork, unfit for use. Such letters do no good---they are no good. There is a sheet full of writing, to be sure, but it is about something that neither interests nor concerns us.  Those letters that tell us about the little things of home; the farm, the horses, the cattle, the dogs and cats, their quality and disposition; also the parties and frolics, who is going to see who, and what people say about it, are the very letters that do all this good I have been telling about.
     The soldiers will always crowd around the ones who get such letters, make remarks and ludicrous suggestions which cause bursts of hearty laughter and strains of highest merriment, thus passing the tedious hours of camp life in a light and merry way.
     No one cares for a letter which is wholly devoted to the praise and admiration of one's patriotism and to the sacredness of the Union cause.
     Such letters bore to the very quick. It seems to them that the writer is taking that opportunity to speak a word of eulogy for himself. As for the true soldier, be never asks for words of flattery; he is not to be gulled with bland words and braggadocio. The letter for the soldier is the long, pithy one, full of little things, even down to gossip. Gossip is better than eulogy, especially when used in an egotistical manner.

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