Monthly Archives: September 2011

30 September 1861: “I have been a soldier in the 8th Reg. but finding that my health was failing I have determined to give up the service & act in some less laborious sphere.”

Posted on 30 Sep ’11 by

Item description: Letter, 30 September 1861, from P.D. Thompson to Anzolette Elizabeth Page Pendleton, together with a similar letter to Col. William Nelson Pendleton, both regarding the Pendletons’ invitation to Thompson to direct a local school. Thompson writes to the … Continue reading →

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29 September 1861: “All battery & cavalry horses when not on expeditions will be grazed as much as practicable.”

Posted on 29 Sep ’11 by

Item description: General Orders No. 58, dated 29 September 1861, conferring command to Major James B. Walton (1813–1885). The second portion of the order gives instructions for grazing military horses. Item citation: From folder 18 of the Boykin Family Papers (#78), … Continue reading →

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28 September 1861: “The weather begins to feel like frost, and hereafter we shall, I fear, find a soldier’s life rather uncomfortable.”

Posted on 28 Sep ’11 by

Item description: Letter from Elisha Franklin Paxton to his wife, Elizabeth, dated 28 September 1861. In the letter Paxton discusses a promotion in rank that he declined, the changing weather, items such as pants and coats sent from home, and … Continue reading →

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27 September 1861: “There are here now only ninety students, last year there was about four hundred, there is about 300 gone to war…”

Posted on 27 Sep ’11 by

Item description: Letter, 27 September 1861, from P. H. Sessoms, Chapel Hill, N.C., to his sister, Penelope White, in Coleraine, Bertie County, N.C. Sessoms describes his trip from Coleraine, past a soldier’s camp in Weldon, N.C., where he observed 1,000 … Continue reading →

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26 September 1861: “Kentucky is in a worse condition than poor Missouri. Many of her best citizens have been incarcerated & her fair fields will soon run red with her children’s blood.”

Posted on 26 Sep ’11 by

Item description: Letter, 26 September 1861, from Given Campbell to his wife “Bettie” describing the situation in Kentucky. Given Campbell was born in Salem, Ky., on 31 December 1835. He studied law at the University of Virginia and, upon graduation, … Continue reading →

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25 September 1861: “Many of us have been in service as long as four months, and neither officers or men of this regiment have received one cent of pay.”

Posted on 25 Sep ’11 by

Item description: Letter to Dennis Heartt, editor of the Hillsborough Recorder, from a soldier in the Sixth Regiment of North Carolina State Troops. In the letter, which was written on 10 September 1861 from Camp Jones, near Bristoe Station, Virginia, … Continue reading →

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24 September 1861: “Near five months have now passed since we left home. Seven still intervene and I hope will pass as rapidly as the two last.”

Posted on 24 Sep ’11 by

Item description: Letter from Nathaniel Henry Rhodes Dawson (1829-1895) to his fiancee Elodie Todd (1844-1881). Nathaniel Henry Rhodes Dawson was a Selma, Ala., lawyer and politician, Confederate officer in the 4th Alabama Infantry Regiment, and United States commissioner of education. … Continue reading →

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23 September 1861: “’tis only in keeping with the baseness to which the men who for their own selfish ends, will resort to break down my influence and authority…”

Posted on 23 Sep ’11 by

Item description: Diary entry, 23 September 1861, of Captain Lewis H. Webb, Company D, 23rd Regiment N.C. Troops. Webb writes of discontent within his company. Captain Webb resigned his post shortly after the time of this diary entry, due to … Continue reading →

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22 September 1861: “I cannot explain what my place is exactly because I don’t know but one man I can trust and because this letter might get in the wrong hands…”

Posted on 22 Sep ’11 by

Item description: Letter, dated 22 September 1861, addressed to Union General George McClellan from an unnamed correspondent. According to a note penciled at the bottom of the letter, this letter was in fact a piece of counterintelligence employed by Confederate … Continue reading →

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21 September 1861: Harper’s Weekly reports on Forts Hatteras and Clark

Posted on 21 Sep ’11 by

Item description: Illustrations accompanying the article, “Forts Hatteras and Clark” in Harper’s Weekly, September 21, 1861: page 597, “View of Fort Hatteras Just Before the Surrender—Colonel Weber’s Force Under the Walls,” and “Gallant Exploit of Aid-du-camp Fiske at the Bombardment … Continue reading →

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