January 22, 1783

James Davenport’s letters from early 1783 suggest that he was indeed as regular a correspondent as he maintained, writing at least every week or two when in winter encampments. Whether his other letters were never delivered or had been lost by the 1850s remains unclear, and for an unknown reason, John Davenport, who transcribed these letters in the 1850s, omitted one letter (the thirteenth in his recording) dated January 22, 1783, from his transcriptions. James Davenport was overjoyed in this letter to have finally received a letter in return. But he remained cynical about the war itself, doubting it would end soon and believing that his service amounted to little more than slavery: “six years and a half being a slave for nothing is enough.”