Granny's Letters:
Some place we found a persimmon tree but they were bitter. We are now in camp about 5 miles from a small town called Cartersville. There are 6 or 7 cars here mostly Ohio cars. Frank and Carrie are shaving this evening for the first time since we have started and this is the 17th of November. We will have to go to bed early to get warm as we have no wood, we are in the woods but the wood is all picked up. We got water from some niggers and they charged us 5 cts a bucket, the men paid them for a bucket that they are to bring in the morning but they did not get it. November 19th - I guess we are in Griffin Ga. It is about 60 miles from Macon and is a nice place. Our next town is Marietta we are now where Sherman fought his battle on his march to the sea. We saw a big stone house that had been used as a prison, the roof was off but it still had the bars in the windows. Marietta is a nice town 20 miles from Atlanta. We bought some government roast beef for 15 cts. a lb. We are going to have some for supper, it is good. We bought bacon in Gadsden for 19 cts. a lb. (government bacon) and it is better than any we get up home for 60 cts. a lb. We had bad roads from Marietta for a few miles they are building new roads and we had to detour, they had convicts working the roads, they were dressed in black and white stripes, the stripes ran around them, they had balls and chains. We stopped at Atlanta and got some sandwiches, they held us up for 15 cts. a sandwich and they were not good. At Gadsden we got fine ones for 5 cts. We did not see any of Atlanta, we would have had to stay a couple of days and we were all glad to get out. It is just about as nice as Cincinnati. The country down here is much nicer than any we have been through, just acres of cotton yet and great fields of mangoes. This town of Griffin is the best town for bargains that we have found, I would have liked to stayed all day it is such a pretty town, it is as large as Greenville anyway. We are now in the jungles discussing which way to go. I forgot to mention our camp last night it was at a place called Orr. Just a shelter shed, a store, a couple of houses, a church and a school house. We camped in the church yard. Mrs. Bitner and I went in the cemetery. So many people have family cemeteries. We missed Macon we did not hit any very pretty towns but we came through a peach country for miles we saw nothing but peaches or orchards. We camped in a woods it was not a very nice place, we had no company. We were about 3 miles from Ft Valley where we hit the highway, the National Highway. We had the finest roads I ever saw, they are wide as a city street and smooth, the ground is sand and clay mixed, I guess, I don't know what else but it packs solid and the roads are surely great. We made good time yesterday and stopped at nearly all of the towns. We had some sandwiches in Vienna the county seat of Dooly county Ga. Every county seat has a confederate monument. We went in a sweet potato house where they had over 9,000 bu. of sweet potatoes in crates stored, they cure them and they keep for 5 years. We stopped at a house and got some turnips, had turnips and greens, every one down here cook their turnip tops for greens, in the stores they have the tops on. We stopped at one place and the boys laughed at us, they said "You all don't talk like we do". We camped at a nice place last night, it was a pine clearing on a hill, just a few pines left. There was one Ky. car, our 3 Ohio cars, one man alone from Calif. and 2 Michigan cars, they all came and sat around our stove, we had a great time. The Ky. people were going back home but they said it was just fine in Florida. Every where we stopped they say "you all going to Florida?" People down here are putting out cabbage plants and the yards are full of roses. Some girls brought us some roses this morning and their Dad brought us some sweet potatoes last evening when they came to spend the evening. This morning there was quite a fog, everything was wet in our camp. We did not have the tent up. I think it rained a little just about day break. The sun is shining now. We have stopped to fix Mr. Bitner's tire. We would have been in Florida before now if we had been alone. We had to change time, we were an hour slow. They have a tree that looks like a locust only it is a nicer shape and has yellowish green berries, they call it the China berry tree, I would like one of them.