Autograph letter signed by Alfred A. Thayer to his wife, Annie Thayer. Marion Hostpial, New Orleans, Louisiana, 18 August 1864. 4 pages, 8vo. With original envelope with red 3-cent stamp, and New Orleans cancel. 

Alfred A. Thayer of Mt. Vernon, Ohio, enlisted at 24 years old as a private on 13 August 1862 and mustered into Company B of the 96th Ohio Infantry a few days later. The regiment spent its service in the Western Theater, participating in many pivotal engagements, including the Battles of Chickasaw Bayou, Port Gibson, two assaults during the Siege of Vicksburg, and the Red River Campaign. Thayer suffered from an unnamed illness throughout his enlistment, first hospitalized on 20 August 1863 in Memphis, and returned on the first of December. He was again hospitalized on 16 March 1864 in New Orleans, from where he writes this letter to his wife. Thayer returned to the regiment in September of that year, seeing out the rest of the war and mustering out with the regiment on 7 July 1865 at Mobile, Alabama. 

Here, Thayer writes to his wife who has evidently expressed a desire to come be with him during his convalescence in New Orleans. He quickly dissuades her of the notion, regaling her with a tale of one of the nurses who attempted to kill his own wife: "Annie, you spoke of that you wish I would let you come down here. Miss. Annie you must not think of that for there is too many women here now. There is one head nurse here with his wife & they quarrel all the time. He got up the other night & swore she had the poke & he was going to kill her. The nurses of his ward heard her screams & broke in & stop[ped] him. She is a very nice woman to look at...I thought she was a nice woman but there is too many woman here now. It ain’t a fit place for a decent woman for she will get insulted."

He continues with more stories of the wives of soldier's at the ward, but the dangers that persist, including smallpox. He concludes the matter with reassurances: "You are better off where you are. I can get along without a woman till I am out of the service & I don't want to come home till I can stay." 

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