This collection consists of a letter to John K. Murdoch from his parents and sister in Ithaca, New York. The letter discusses the health and activities of family and friends; civic affairs, including an election in which a candidate purchased votes for two dollars; and the return of the bodies of dead soldiers. Murdoch’s sister, Mary, tells a story about the husband of an acquaintance stealing jewelry from a dead Confederate soldier in Chattanooga, Tennessee.