Camp near Triune Tennessee, March 20, 1863

We are living the same life as before, and are all in good health.

Yesterday we got our pay for the months of September and October of last year, I received twenty-six dollars. The paymaster said he would be back again in two weeks, but I don’t expect that he will be back for another two months.

Evend is on picket-duty today. Company E have been five miles out in the country for corn and fodder today. They came back at two o’clock this afternoon.

Concerning the war, it is about the same as before, but it looks as if we will have less marching this summer.

Our line here is strong, soldiers are coming in by brigades and divisions.

We are making breastwork on all high places, and double and triple breastwork along the line.

The Rebels are not far away with a large army.

We built a large bridge over a creek which we finished building the seventeenth. In the night the Rebels tried to burn it, but it was made from green timbers so it would not burn. A few soldiers from each side were wounded. Our regiment was not there.

Some Sergeants who were promoted to Lieutenants and Captains about six or seven months ago, and expecting the pay of a Lieutenant or Captain, had gone in debt, some as much as four or five hundred dollars which was to be paid on pay day; but when the paymaster came they only received pay as a Sergeant which is seventeen dollars a month, all they received each was thirty-four dollars. This caused much merriment among us poor soldiers.

I believe the reason was that their papers had been mislaid, and they had not been sworn in.

The weather is now starting to get warm, the ground is getting green but the trees are still mostly quite black yet. The shade has been comfortable the last four days. The sun is hot but the nights are cold.

There are now plenty of blankets, overcoats and other winter clothing which is now thrown away as we have no more use for them.

T.B. Laumann intends to go to Minnesota in the spring. I wrote to him and asked him if he intended to take some cattle along and if so, if he would take along a pair of young oxen and a few sheep which I would buy from him, but have not received an answer yet.

I am enclosing fifty cents in this letter with which to pay the postage if I get a letter from Norway on which the postage is not prepaid.

Reese sent Fredrick Olsen a dollar’s worth of postage stamps, but said he had to pay with silver, but I thought there was enough in St. Peter of the same kind as this fifty-cent bill and they are as good as silver money at a postoffice.

I changed a ten-dollar bill today with the paymaster and in return got twenty fifty-cent bills.

Tomorrow we intend to send to Nashville for postage stamps. I believe we can get them there.

We are now in the 3rd Brigade in the 1st Division in the 14th Army Corps. General Thomas commands our Corps and we are in the middle of the army.

Thomas commands the center part, and Christenson the wing to our left, and Rosencrans is commander over all.