In Camp
June 11th 1898

Dear Mother and Sister,
Your long looked for letter came to hand night before last, but since my foot got well they are making me pay up for lost time in the way of work and Drill. I will tell you as near as I can of our routine of duty, every call is made by the bugle, so we have to have an ear for music to understand the calls, 4.30 am is to jump out of bed I mean off the ground. 4.40 we have roll call and if you are not in line when the bugle calls you have to do police duty it is not like the duty the stalwards of Dul do. it is to clean up the street and dig garbage holes and all such dirty work as that then at 5am we fall in for breakfast we fall in for everything and fallout again. at 5.30 we have sick call if you are sick you report to the hospital. and if you should take sick 30 minutes afterwards you would have to wait till next morning. 5.45 we have Co. drill by the Non Com officers, till about 8am then we have again at lOam Battalion drill which consists of 4 Cos which last till 11am and at 12 ok }ig M.T. then we all turn in to fix up our quarters for inspection which is inspected by the head Dr and Officer of the day then at 3P.M we have sham battle which last till 5PM at 6.30 comes guard mount which is a verry pretty sight there is six men detailed from each Co to go on guard for 24 hours, you have to walk your post for 2 hours and in the guard house for 4 I will have to go on tomorrow night. We got to have our buckles and guns shined up and dressed in full dress, then}ig M.T once more and immeditaly after we have dress parade the whole regiment turns out which is a verry fine sight after dress parade we have till 9pm to ourselves then comes Tatoo and at 9.15 all lights must be inspection of quarters by the high "mucky mucks" and our regiment was pronunced the best on the grounds how is that for Minn. and Co G Ranked 98% second best on the grounds Sunday night 12 I started to write this about 11 am yesterday but was called out again for another Brigade reviue some of McKinleys staff is here and they want to pick out a Co for his body guard and I understand the honors lies between Co G and Co C of our reg and I Penn Co and 1 Ohio Co as they have not descided as yet Then there was another rumor out last for us to go to Porto Rico as soon as we could get ready there is so many rumers afloat that it is hard to belive all. I think a Hotel Keeper would do well here. We started out for that review here yesterday about 11.10 and it was a verry sultry day not a breath of wind and the Ther at 103 in the shade and we had to be in full dress. walked about 1~ miles to the parade grounds some of the boys fell out on the way but when we got there we had to stand at attention so long and the presperation stopped the boys started to drop like the spaniards will when we get after them but providence sent a nice cool breeze which saved us from all dropping we got back in 2 hours and had our usual drill and I just got nicely asleep when I was called to go on guard in place of a fellow that was sick. Well it started to rain about 110k today and every drop as large as a bucket I never saw such rain it was my luck to be on watch when it came and it came just in time to put out all the fires that we cook with so dry bread was the bill of fare and it started again at 5 this PM so we will fare the same tonight our tents are flooded but we have rubber blankets to lie on. The boys have taken advantage of this rain and have gone back to the old customs like Adam and Eve I mean Adam there is no Eves here only they have no fig leaves I get letters quite regurlary from Pa yours Maggies and Almas came together Alma was the most thoughtful she sent me some stamps I will try and write her tomorrow if we dont go before that. I am writing this on the back of a tin plate standing up tell Mrs Burns to write I got her paper and will write when I get caught up. I was just wondering how you was going to church in the rain to night hoping this will find you all well as I am in the best of health if I had something in my stomach

Will