Think of the black trousers on the patch. Soldiers of 138 years ago had but few of the privileges of soldiers of today. The regulations were certainly strict, but we believe they were for the good of the soldiers or so intended. The making of sugar recalls the fact that in the early part of the past century, sugar as we now have it, was unknown. The sugar making referred to by Samuel Bains was that made from the sap of the sugar maple.
Wheat sowing in Tennessee now is done in the fall, but then in the spring, to judge from the letter.
We would judge that Samuel Bains was a volunteer from the instructions he gave on addressing his mail Capt. Bird Martin s T.V., meaning Tennessee Volunteers. Readers will also note, that Mississippi was still a territory when the letter was written. We give it as our opinion that both letters do credit to their writers for the day and time in which they lived. They are intelligently composed, newsy, and are both in very good grammatical order.