[Inclosure to first indorsement.] SAN ANTONIO, February 8, 1864.

Miss ANNA FORMAN:

MY DEAR FRIEND ANNA: I arrived here yesterday from Arkansas and the Indian Department, where I have been with my command for the past nine months, and you can scarcely imagine my delight and surprise on learning that a party of my old friends, had arrived the day before, among the number Mrs. Judge Terry, bearing to me your most welcome message. I had abandoned the hope, so long fondly cherished, of hearing from you during the present war. I would have written to you long since, but feared it might bring you or your parents into serious trouble if it were known that you corresponded with an arch rebel like myself. Silent as I have been, I have often thought of you while walking my lonely beatat night, and on the battle-field, when comrades were fast falling around me, and the firm belief that your heart and sympathies were with us, gave me additional courage and cheered me on in the path of duty and honor. Anna, I have not yet had cause to regret the course I marked out at the commencement of this long bloody, and desolating war. I am proud to fight and, if necessary die, with a people who have contended so gallantly for their liberties against such fearful odds. If you could see them as I have, the old and the young, marching on apparently to certain death, and the noble women of the land, unaccustomed to labor, working day and night, knitting, spinning, and weaving to clothe our gallant soldiers, taking their carpets from their parlors to make blankets and their surplus wearing apparel to make shirts-were I to tell you all that these people have suffered without a murmur, you would say with me (as I am sure you do), having purchased liberty at such a frightful sacrifice, they are deserving of it, and never can be conquered. Our army is now in a better condition than at any time since the war commenced, while our people all over the country are more firmly united than ever. It is true we have lost a great many gallant men; indeed, almost every house in the land is in mourning over some fallen relation. Still, wehave enough left to continue the war for years, and we feel that it would be much better that the last man should perish in defense of his rights rather than live the despised serfs of a Northern despot. The enemy have landed at several points along the coast, and are evidently preparing to make one last desperate effort to crush and subjugate us. All is as yet quiet, but it is the calm which precedes the storm, and we may soon expect to have the clash of arms all the coast from the Rio Grande to New Orleans. Come as they may, we are prepared to meet them, and if forced to fall back before superior numbers, we have determined to lay waste every field, burn every dwelling, and leave to the invaders no mark of civilization save the ruins of once happy homes, the deserted field, ans the mangled bodies of the slain. I am truly gratified to hear of your father's resignation. You know we were always firm friends, and it pained me to think that we should be arrayed against each other. When I arrived in Texas I found myself a stranger in a strange land. Those whom I expected to meet were either dead or in our army east of the Mississippi. I, however, soon met with Captain George L. Patrick, of Tuolumne. You doubtless remember meeting his sister Annie at Sacramento during the session of 1861. I at once joined his company as a private, and soon after had the honor of participating in the battle of Galveston and soon after in the naval engagement off Sabine Paured the enemy's blockading fleet. My name was favorably mentioned in the reports of both