now Brigadier General has for along time commanded the 2nd 
Brigade (ours) by the is now absent home on furlough and the 
Brigade is now commanded by Brigadier General Dennis  lately 
promoted from Col. Of the 30th Ill. Vols. in our Brigade.  Then 
you perceive that we are in the Army of General Grant 2nd  
Brigade, 3d Division.  There is 4 regiments in the 2nd Brig to 
wit: 78th, 68th, 20th, Ohio and 30th Illinois.
Martha it is very pleasant here.  Roses are in full bloom 
numberless flowers of rare beauty now scatter their fragrance to 
the air.  The forest is in its glorious foiage all of which any 
other time would plese the taste and stir the admiration of any 
northern mind.  Peaches are large as bird eggs.  Imagine 
plantation after plantation before you containing 300 to 500 and 
sometimes 1,000 acres of land all cultivable (but now neglected) 
and as our best Maume River bottoms! Your exclamation would be 
what immense wealth!  What immense wealth! 
I wish some of our would be northern aristocrats could see the 
wealth spread out here they would not attach so much importance 
to the possession of a few thousand dollars and perhaps would 
feel more charity for poor men.  This is without exception the 
wealthiest county I ever beheld.  But there is poverty in the 
same degree among the lower classes into which slavery is a great 
drawback on republican institutions.  No more my dear, but you 
will hear from me soon again

Jacob Brunner

			

Jacob Bruner Papers

Letter from Jacob Bruner to Martha J. Bruner