Picolata, Fla Thursday 26th 1865

My Dear Sister,

I received two letters from you yesterday evening one dated the 30th of December and the other the 6th of January and was glad to hear from you. If I am well, I shall be in Conn. In two hundred and twelve days from today. My health improved for the last week and am in hopes that I shall not have any more of those chills.

This is the first mail we have had since the 2nd of the month. And what provoked me was that Lieut. Colonel detained the mail in St. Augustine three days before he gave orders for it to go to this post. I did not think that of him sence the Colonel has been captured he has made a great many enemies in the regt. I among a great many would like to help him out of the service. I think before this time is out he will that he is not the ruler of all, as he thinks he is now. December 30th the mail was not to leave [undecipherable] to and I thought I would mail and give you the latest news but I find theirs no thing knew to write.

The coldest weather we have had in Fla has been the last three days. The weather has been so warm that a little cold weather, we feel more than if it had been cold all the time. It caused us to make a chimney. We have just as nice a house as any soldier in the rank. The house I am in has three. Beside myself they are all Wilton men Hagar, Hoyt, Paynton and myself and we envy ourself as much as any soldier can, all of us counting the times we had to go on pickett. We get all the reading material we can find, someone of us, are reading aloud most every evening. We have a calender of dates, and at night someone of us scratch the day passed out. This is one day less.

The general says we are good for six months in this place and St. Augustine. The Catholic minister has seen the Colonel and says he likes the Regt. And the General is a Catholic and that makes us all bunk for six months more. I must close.

From James B. Hurlbutt

Your Loving brother "Jammy"