Mobile, Ala. March 10, 1863

Dear Father
I seat myself this sad evening to write to you a few lines to let you know that I am in good heath at present and I hope that you and all the family may be enjoying the best of heath. My Dear Father I have bad news to tell you. Joseph Stephens is dead. Yes he is numbered with the dead. He was buried this evening at the City Graveyard. I don’t know what was the matter with him. He was taken with the flux and then he was taken the measles and he kept getting worse until he died. He was sick about six weeks. O to think that he has left his family and friends never to return. May God look on his dear wife with tender mercy and help her bear all her troubles and sorrows. He is done with the troublesome war and world. I hope to see him before long and my dear brother in a world where there is no grief nor sorrow. Where we can live to never part. May God keep all forever. I will wipe the tears from my eyes and write something else.

I have no good news to write only that I have been promoted to Sergent. I know that you will rather hear that I was promoted to hear of me being in the Guardhouse or deserted or something of the sort. If I live and the war lasts I will be a Lieutenant some day. Our Brigade is broke up and scattering everywhere. Some regiments going one place and some another. We are ordered somewhere but I don’t know where but I recon that we will go up in the northern part of this state. You must not doubt us agoin for we are sure to go. You need not write to me until you hear from me again for I know we will be gone before a letter can get here. [In April 1863, the 38th Alabama Infantry was assigned to the Army of Tennessee and moved to Tullahoma, Tennessee as part of Clayton’s Brigade] Dear Father I want to tell you I want to see you all very bad and my dear wife and little boys. My mind is with you all this evening. It is a sad and lonesome time with me here this evening so far from my home and relations and what dearer that all my wife and little children. But I hope that is God’s will for me to live through this and let me return home and to live and enjoy the sweet blessings of home and family but if it is not his will I hope to meet you all in a better world. That is where parting in on more.

The heath of our company is very good. We have about ninety men for duty. There is some few cases of measles yet. William Stephens is in the hospital yet but is mending very fast. If he will take care of himself he will soon be well again.

I got a letter from George the other day. He had to go back to his company and was well and very well satisfied. I wrote all that I know of. I will write to you again in a few days. So no more at present.
W. T. Henley

Tell Julia that I am in good health and tell her the we are ordered off and for not to write to me until she gets a letter from me. So nothing more. Excuse my bad writing. I am your son till death.
To Joseph Henley.

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Henley really missed his family and it's a tragedy that he had to leave them never to return. He was tuned in to Army rumors as the regiment moved out of Mobile to Tennessee shortly after this letter was written. The 38th Alabama would see hard battles and many deaths at Chickamauga and Lookout Mt. before his capture on Missionary Ridge.

Note: W. T. Henley had three brothers in the Confederate Army; Joseph, Thomas and finally Lewis. They grew up near present day Fulton in Clarke County, AL. Lewis was the only brother to survive. W. T. Henley, a private in Company D, was captured at Missionary Ridge on November 25, 1863, and died at Rock Island Barracks Prison on December 27, 1863, of pneumonia. He is buried in Grave #76 of the prison graveyard.