Lachen, June 26, 1866 My Dears,
 From the bottom of my heart, I take pen in hand to let you know about our well-being, which hopefully is not absent among you either. My dear ones, I have to tell you that yesterday a telegram came, that everyone from 18 to 40 years old has to be ready to go to war by August 1. So I have firmly decided to leave here by next week and travel to New York, and other young people have already departed from here – namely, Abraham & Henzel Frundlig [Freundlich] and all the young people in the whole area. Now my dear ones, I'll write you again from Weißenburg where you can send money to me for the journey from New York to New Orleans. Now my dear ones, be [...] helpful to me and if it is the will of God Almighty and the Almighty one allows me to remain healthy, [page 2:] then I will reimburse you with a thousand thanks . . . . with a thousand thanks. So I will write to you all again from Weißenburg. Brother Heinrich and dear Karolina, we (I myself) got your letter directly from Adler and your photograph made us very happy. I asked Mr. Adler in Kirschheim a lot of questions about your well-being and I see from your photograph, dear [little] Heinrich, that you have become very chubby. Now, my dear ones, I am going to end my letter with one hundred thousand warm greetings and kisses. Excuse sister Babette and our dear parents because they have not written for a long time. Many warm greetings from them. My dear ones, I will write you again when I depart here, or [more correctly] from here. Excuse my bad handwriting this time around. Your, Karl Mayer
 Dear Heinrich, you also write that our dear parents should write their opinion about it. They won’t need to do this now, and you will also not demand it of them, since you can easily imagine that I should not become a soldier. [page 3:] [two green stamps:] BAVARIA TWELVE 12 KREUZER FRANCO BAVARIA NINE 9 KREUZER FRANCO Mr.
 Henry Mayer care of D. Blum & Frank New - Orleans La America [cancellation stamp over the name “Frank”] ..AVIER 28 June 66 [cancellation stamp, left of the word “Amerika”] NEUSTADT 28