Bishop hopes to be able to return home via the Mississippi River but doesn't want to get his hopes up.
Napoleonville
May 24th 1863
Dear Wife
last night the mail came in and there was no letter front you. we had a nail come last night but there was no letter for me in it. I think that there must be two letters on board of the Quincy Mail Steamer which Sal led on the 6th of May but it seems that that vessel is a Transport and probably stopped at some intermediate Port coining out. she has not arrived yet. last night the Captain came home from N. Orleans after having seen General Banks. General Banks was so busy that he could not give his business any attention and the Capt. says lie does not mean to try any more to get us out in June so that I have made up my mind that we shall have to stay until the 14th of August. now my dear I have never made up my mind until last night that we should not be discharged until August. we all of us feel very much disappointed and we hardly know how to bear it without murmuring but of course we shall have to make the best of it. now my dear I hardly know how we shall get along in passing the time for 2 months longer as the time up to June 30th seemed sufficiently long, but it will not help the matter to repine. My darling if we got to stay here until the 14th of August if you are in good health you must write often enough so that I will get a letter every mail that comes. but perhaps you do not have t hue to write more than you do. I know that the children require a good deal of care and probably you feel tired at night after having worked all day hard but still if you knew how anxiously we wished for letters front home you would try to be sure and get a good long letter at least twice a week ready for me. My dear you know of course that as I cannot do as other lien do I. (that is satisfy themselves on white women and probably black) of course. I must get all the satisfaction I can from reading your letters. and the more affectionate expressions they contain the better pleased I am.
My dear I wish you could once in a while that you thought if you if you could have a good visit from your grandmother you would or if you would say sometimes that you would like to see your aged Relative why it would kind of sorter show me that you sometimes thought of such such things.
I am aware my dear that modesty sometimes keeps a wife from expressing her mind in full but my darling I cannot see that there would be any indelicacy when it was addressed to me unless you are afraid that it will come to other eyes but mine.
the only chance I see for that is if the letters should fall into the hands of the Enemy before reaching me. I never have yet showed a letter of yours to anyone but myself and I do not intend to. So that my dear I do not wish you to be afraid to write to me anything that you think would please me.
and my dear I do not wish you to do anything or write anything that cause you to think that you had done wrong. but my dear you must Govern yourself in this matter as you think you ought to. and now my dear Wife I cannot expect to see you for 2 or 3 months and of course shall have to rely on your letters for my happiness. My darling I love you still as fondly as ever and desire to be with you as strongly as ever but I must crush that desire for the present until there is some reasonable prospect of its fulfilment. My dear you do not say anything about getting your new teeth in your last letter of the 7th or 9th of May. but I presume if your health is good that you have got them in before this. My health is not as good as it was when I first came out but I think it is the process of acclimation and I hope I shall hold out to get home to you and the children. I need the encouragement my dear Wife of your sympathy and love and counsel. I feel just as if I could lay my head on your breast and listen to your sympathy.
My dear dear accept the warmest love that I can give and believe that I desire to make you happy and to help you through this world as easily as my poor self can. I feel sorry my darling that you have to take the whole care of the Family but I hope to be able to be at home to share the troubles of life if I cannot prevent them with you. and now my darling you must kiss the children for me and tell them that I think of them and long to see them. w rite often my dear and believe me to be
your loving husband
J.D.B.
