Ringgold, Ga., Jany 13, 1863

Well My Good & Noble Sallie,

I am just in receipt of your kind letter of the 8th inst. which gave me much pleasure indeed to learn this, the medium of a sheet of letter paper, & on that seeing & reading the kind words written by that sweet little hand of yours that I claim as my own. 'Am I right in so doing.' I arrived here last night from Tullahoma, where our Army is now stationed & I hope will not retreat any farther. Genl Bragg now says he intends making another fight. Anyway before he goes to Chattanooga, tho' when I wrote you before, his dispatches to me was to get all the comsy stores to Chattanooga at once & meet him then as he intended falling back to that point. I am glad he as concluded differently, as the soldiers did not like to cross south of the Tennessee River, in fact I think a great portion of them would have rebelled & deserted in prefference. In fact I would not have found fault of them for doing so, as we certainly did whip the fight, up to friday, & no party has any fancy for retreating unless they are badly whipped & in this case they certainly were not. Well my Good Girl, you cannot imagine how much I desire to see you, in fact I am perfectly unhapy except when I am thinking of the object of my purest affections, the only being I love whose name you claim but at some future day not far distance, I hope claim your heart & hand, & know that your name is Mrs. Hendrix, 'ha' What say now.

I leave here in a few days for Mobile at least as soon as Maj Malay arrives here & I am looking for him to day. He is going with me to the City above mentioned for the purpose of purchasing Sugar for the Government & I wil not have time to stop to see you, which I very much regret, but it is something I cannot avoid, from the fact I am acting under orders from Genl Bragg & he has given me such time to make the trip in from the date of my departure from here. But immediately on my return I will visit my darling Sallie. I am in great haste, the train is coming & I expect my friend. You must write me to Mobile care J. H. Gamen. Write me a long letter, I so dearly love to read after that prolific pens, weilded by my own hand in your possession. Le me hear from you at Mobile, Ala. at once.

I am ever your Affectionate

Sol B. Hendrix