Benjamin F. Burke Letter - September 10, 1861

Dear Brother:
I am just now on the eve of leaving Houston for Virginia and have the opportunity of writing a few lines by Mr. Alley. We will leave soon in the morning. I am pretty well at this time though I have been rather unwell for the last two or three days. I am in pretty fine sprits and am very glad to get off from this place. I am about as tired of this place as I was of any place in my life.

Our company now after organizing numbers 107 men and goes by the name of the Lone Star Rangers. We have got a good many rowdys in our company. They have been cuting considerably ever since we have been here and have not give us anything of a good name, though we had the name of the finest that ever came in Houston, at first. I will have to cut my words short as it is very late in the night and I am in town and have to get back by nine o'clock. And also you see from my writing that I have a very bad pen. This chance to send you a few lines by Alley as he says he is going right by our house.

I did not know I was going to leave untill after night this eavening. I will write to you the first opportunity I have on the road. I was very sorry to hear you did not join the other company with Alley. We have got only about 30 horses to ride over that prairie for all our company. I expect we will have an awful time of it as the roads is very bad.

I will stop at Uncle Morrison's & will write from there. I wish you would write me a letter and send it by Mr. Alley.

So fare you well for the night.

Your Brother,
B. F. Burke

Heard, Jessie Burke, ed. Terry Ranger Writes Home: Letters of Pvt. Benjamin F. Burke Written While in Terry's Texas Rangers 1861-1864. No Place, No Publisher, 1965. (Available in the University of Houston Library.)