Dear friends at home I received your kind and welcomed letter of the 8 May

Manings Plantation
Near Donaldsonville L.A.
June 5 [1864]
Dear friends at Home
I received your kind and welcomed letter of the 8 May last Wedensday and was very glad to hear that you wer all well at home and was very glad to get the thread and neadls [needles] but was sory that you did not send eny [any] stamps but I hope that I shall get some by the next mail[.]  Well we have had a goodeal [good deal] of moving since I last wrote[,] the 4 Companys that wer at N.O. arrived here last Monday night and a boat arrived the next day with a ***[,] the Band and the Colonel on it so we have plenty of musick here now the  *** has got read [ready] to sell his goods and I have drew a $2.00 Check so I could get afew [a few] things he sells [-] stamped invelops at 5 cents a piece and paper he sells 2 sheats for 5 cents so it costs somthing to write now[.]
I want you should sent once in a while some stamps[,] neadls and thread just enough to keepe me in them all the time.  And when you write so often you can stick in some little things and it will not cost any more.  Sutch as some beeswax.  And if aut [Austin] can get any tamrack gum I would like it first rate.  I wish you would send me a reseipt [recipe] for making a baked ingen pudding, rise pudding[,] mint pudding and the best way to make pancakes and any other reseipt for cooking that you think will come handy for me here[,] for we have a good oven and most every thing we want for cooking but I do not know how long we shall be here but we fix things up just as if we wer a going to stay ower time out here.  Well last night we had 2 more companys come here from *** so we have 8 Cos on this plantation now and this is the head quarters.  4 of the Cos have to camp out on the ground in small A tents so this begins to look like soldering but before this it has not looked as if we wer soldiers for we have ben scatterd around in good buildings.  Well ower Regiment is a quere [queer] regiment enyway [anyway] for we have never ben attached to any Division but have ben a *** regiment of ower own[.]  Well I have seene Ell to day and hee is well and sends his best respects to you[,] also Hiram  Andrews and Asap and all the boys that are in Co B that came from ower place I have not seene them since we left Washington[,] also the Magor he is as well as *** and he sends his best respects to Father and all the famley.  Well I have not much more to write[.]  I want to know how you all get along farming and how all the young and old folks are getting along around their [there] this spring[.]  tell Father that I hope that him and aut will gett along firstrate with the farm and that I think they will do better now with what I can send home than if I was their [there] to help them[.]  tell Father that I want to know just what he thinks now about my inlisting and that I would like to have him tell you what to write about the farming for that is what interests me most.  I suppose that you will hear from Dar again before this reaches you and I want you should lett me know if he is all rite yet.  I sent aletter [a letter] to you with a knife and a pair of scisors for the girls[.]  I want to know if you got it[.]  no more at present[.]  write soon to your son
J.R. Sunderland