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The letters of the common soldiers are rich in humor.

Indeed, no richer humor is to be found in the whole of American literature than in the letters of the semi-literate men who wore the blue and the gray.

Some of their figures of speech were colorful and expressive.

A Confederate observed that the Yankees were: `` thicker than lise on a hen and a dam site ornraier ''.

Another reported that his comrades were `` in fine spirits pitching around like a blind dog in a meat house ''.

A third wrote that it was `` raining like poring peas on a rawhide ''.

Yanks were equally adept at figurative expression.

One wrote: `` ( I am so hungry ) I could eat a rider off his horse & snap at the stirups ''.

A second reported that the dilapidated houses in Virginia `` look like the latter end of original sin and hard times ''.

A third remarked of slowness of Southerners: `` they moved about from corner to corner, as uneasy as a litter of hungry leaches on the neck of a wooden god ''.

Still another, annoyed by the brevity of a recently received missive, wrote: `` yore letter was short and sweet, jist like a roasted maget ''.

A Yankee sergeant gave the following description of his sweetheart: `` my girl is none of your one-horse girls.

She is a regular stub and twister, double geered.

She is well-educated and refined, all wildcat and fur, and Union from the muzzle to the crupper ''.

Humor found many modes of expression.

A Texan wrote to a male companion at home: `` what has become of Halda and Laura??

When you see them again give them my love -- not best respects now, but love by God ''.

William R. Stillwell, an admirable Georgian whose delightful correspondence is preserved in the Georgia Department of Archives and History, liked to tease his wife in his letters.

After he had been away from home about a year he wrote: `` ( dear Wife ) if I did not write and receive letters from you I believe that I would forgit that I was married.

I don't feel much like a maryed man but I never forgit it sofar as to court enny other lady but if I should you must forgive me as I am so forgitful ''.

A Yank, disturbed by his increasing corpulence, wrote: `` I am growing so fat I am a burden 2 myself ''.

Another Yank parodied the familiar bedtime prayer: `` now I lay me down to sleep, the gray-backs o'er my body creep ; ;

if they should bite before I wake, I pray the Lord their jaws to break ''.

Charles Thiot, a splendid Georgia soldier, differed from most of his comrades in the ranks in that he was the owner of a large plantation, well-educated, and nearly fifty years of age.

But he was very much like his associates in his hatred of camp routine.