Dear Parents,

I took this opportunity to write to you to let you know that I am well and what we are about.

We left Hampton Roads, the day I wrote to you last, at 2 o’clock in the afternoon and were towed to Newport News where we landed.  We put up for the night in an empty hospital.  The next day we went into camp.  This place consists of 3 divisions of hospitals.

When Ben Butler came here he erected a fortification on the hill.  In the first place I shall describe the grounds.  The place is built on the bend at the mouth of the river.  Along the coast is a high bluff, some 30 feet above the water.  All the way from 5 to 10 rods from the water there was four heavy siege pieces mounted on the highest points.   There was barracks built for 3 regiments.  The first division consists of ten buildings, 30 by 20, intended for one regiment, with officers quarters in the front.  The fort is encircled by breast works with a number of field pieces to define them.  Outside the breast works are ten more buildings of the same size.   The officers quarters are about 20 feet square.  Beyond these are four more buildings, rather smaller.  All these barracks are being fitted up for hospitals. They have been used for that purpose and there are some few here now.  There are a great many other buildings occupied by the government.   There are two companies of the 18 Pennsylvania based here.  Stationed here is the 7th Massachusetts Battery.  There is several dwellings here.  One is used by the Major of cavalry and his family.  The guns have been removed from the fortifications.

We are encamped by brigades near the place.  The land is very good about here.  There is plenty of apples and peaches out a few miles.  The apples are getting ripe but they are not grown yet.

It is generally thought that part of Halleck’s army is coming here and other troops to make out an army of 70,000 to be commanded by Burnside and that we are to attack Fort Darling .

Thursday was the warmest day we have had yet.  The thermometer stood at 105 in the shade.   The first two days we went about where we pleased, but a guard was put on and we were not allowed to go outside the lines without a commissioned officer passes us by the sentinel or we have a pass.  We go out in squads every morning to swim.  There are plenty of stores here but few of them have got much.  We begin to drill again.  We drill the same as at Newbern.  The masts of the frigate Cumberland are sticking up a little way from shore and the hulk of the Congress, which was burnt.

There is a pretty graveyard here used for those of the two frigates that were washed ashore and those that have died in the hospitals from a great many regiments.  Every grave has a head board printed with the name, age and date of death.

I suppose people are haying at home but there is none of that done here.  I have not seen but a very few pieces of mowing.  South, in Maryland, the farmers did not raise much stock.  I saw one piece of clover when we went to Camden.   People plant their ground as long as it will bear anything and then leave it several years.  The land about here is the best I have seen.  I don’t think of much more to write. I have wrote you all that is of much interest.  I will write again as soon as anything of interest occurs.  Goodbye for this time.

From your absent son,

Henry W. Brown