West Point
Dear Father,
I will answer your questions as best as I can. As to the shirts, I shall not want them till I get home, I think I can get along tell then. So you need not send them to me hear. 1st.- My checkbook is turned in to the Commissary for settlement, so I don’t know exactly how my account stands. I think I shall be about $50 in debt. I can tell you next letter. 2d. – I cannot get any money to go home with if in debt. 3d. – Our pay goes on while we are on Furlough and amounts to $60, of which $40 we are allowed to have providing we lay it out in clothes, and $16 to go home with if we are out of debt, if we are in debt we can not get the clothes or the money, unless we deposit enough to put us out of debt. 4th. – In case of emergency we could not get one cent paid to us in advance. If we have not the same means to go on Furlough we can’t go at all and will have to stay here all summer. 5th. – Neither goods nor clothes could be sent me without a permit, but you can send all the money you want to., it would be breaking an old rule, but nobody thinks or cares anything about it. The Officers know very well the Cadets get all the money they want from home, they don’t care. I guess the Superintendent likes to have them get all the money they can from home. I shall be happy to receive all you will send. […]
Malcolm McArthur to his father, Arthur McArthur, Sr. [McArthur Family Papers]
