Parkhurst updates his sister on his life over the past few months. He writes that he is headquartered in Nashville where he and Josephine are living in a boarding house. He mentions meeting with Confedereate Lt. General Nathan Bedford Forrest, who had seized Murfreesboro from Union control and imprisoned Parkhurst while Parkhurst was serving as an assistant to the Provost Marshal in the city in the summer of 1862. Parkhurst described their meeting as "agreeable" and noted that they struck an agreement to exchange 10,000 prisoners of war. Parkhurst also explains how he made an arrangement with Forrest to allow trains in Northern Mississippi to travel under a flag of truce in order to carry food to starving families. Parkhurst writes that he sympathized with these families because he sees Union rations going to waste all the time. Recently, he witnessed dozens of sacks of corn rations ruined by heavy rain and flooding.
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