Item No. 1522616

A group of seven home front family letters written to Captain William A. Walker of Company D, 1st South Carolina Cavalry by his daughter Fanny Walker, his mother C. R. Walker, and educator William Reynolds, penned between August and October 1862 while Walker recovered from wounds received in Virginia.

The letters from young Fanny are especially touching, filled with affectionate updates about school, family, and home. She repeatedly expresses how much she misses her father, writing, “Pa, I do miss you so much,” and later pleads, “Pa, I would like for you to get a furlough and come home.” Her letters recount local rumors following the Second Battle of Manassas, including reports that William Donuvant, “Captain Strait,” C. Scott Wilson, and “Brandt” had been wounded, while celebrating news that her father had recovered enough to ride horseback again.

Walker's mother contributes detailed accounts of wartime Chester. She describes manufacturing salt despite poor yields, harvesting wheat and fodder, struggling to obtain clothing and shoes, and sending her son coats, a cap, fruit, and other necessities. She anxiously follows Confederate operations in Virginia and Maryland, observing that the last they had heard of Stonewall Jackson, “he was in Maryland going on. I fear he will meet with a trap,” while lamenting the mounting casualties among friends and neighbors. Particularly noteworthy is her discussion of enslaved labor being impressed for Confederate service, explaining that Walker's enslaved man Cesar had been selected to construct the Charleston coastal defenses and asking her son to locate him if possible.

The final letter, written by William Reynolds of Columbia, concerns Walker's desire to place young Fanny in boarding school. Reynolds and the women of his household gently advise against it, concluding that “the best place for Fanny for another year is with her Aunt,” citing both her youth and the heightened risk of childhood diseases then prevalent in wartime Columbia.

The letters were written upon letter sheets of various sizes. Creased at the original folds. The full transcripts of the letters follow below.

Letter No. 1:

Chester SC August 11th 1862

My Dear Father
I received your letter on yesterday. I was very sorry to hear that you were improving so slowly. I do not think it can be any warmer where you are than it is here at this time. Huddy and James were not at school this morning. I think Grandma Walker went to Mr. Coldwell’s to see cousin Cattie. Pa please let me stay at home till it gets cooler. It is very warm walking to school. Pa, Willie is the worst little fellow you ever saw. Cousin Eliza Stringfellow started for Florida last Sunday and was a week with a gentleman who was going there. Cousing Bettie sends her love to you. Pa, you must write to me as often as you can and let me know how you are getting on. I have not commenced your stockings yet. Judy and James send a kiss to you. I spent one day with cousin Maggie since you left. Pa, I do miss you so much. Cousin Fannie Turner has been staying with Aunt Fannie. Aunt Fannie sends her love to you and says she would like to hear from you often. Willie tries so hard to talk. Pa, I have no news to tell you, so I must close. From your affectionate Daughter
Fannie

Letter No. 2:

August the 21 1862, Chester

My Dear Son
I resume my pen to converse with you by letter, as that is the way we have to converse now. I feel very sad and low down since you left. I hardly know what to do with myself. The last separation was so hard to part. The Children felt it sensibly. They talk often about Pa, if they could only see Pa and hear him talk to them. Fanny left the next morning after you left. I was very sorry she left so soon. She said you told her to do so. She went to Reedy’s. I sent for her last Friday to come and enjoy the watermelons, but I do not know how long she will remain with me. I would be anxious she would remain with me. The Children is going to school every day. I hear their lessons in the morning.

We have had wheat threshed and cleaned. We have one hundred and sixteen bushels of clean wheat. I am in the salt manufactory this week. It is almost a humbug. We boil a bushel pot full of water and will perhaps have one quart of salt. It is the color of brown sugar. It will do to salt meat. That is what we need at present. We expect to commence to full fodder next week. We had two weeks of extremely hot and dry weather. The rain has returned and the weather is pleasant. I hope your joint will get well in time if it should be long.

I wish to know how those men that left the Company appears towards you, and if those that joined here went on and how they received you when you returned to Camp, and how Colonel Black received you. Let me know if John White went on. I have very few visitors. Those at the white ouse is seldom here. I go to Church and take the Children with me. Mr. Banks was going up the Country and called and spent a night with us and he prayed for you in every capacity of life in your present situation, and that which is to come, and also for the Children, and asked them some questions which they answered very well. I hope you will not have to go to Virginia. It is very hot there. The saddest times. Everyone is wounded when they have a fight, and they are after fighting. Edward McLure is come home and is looking very badly, hardly able to help himself, he is so used up.

I hope, Alex, you will not forget yourself. Remember you are exposed to danger every hour of your life. I have some awful forebodings. I cannot tell my feelings to any person. I have no bosom friend but my Jesus.

Alex, I will send your Cap when I get it the first opportunity, but Sue is not here. We will have it covered shortly when convenient. I heard John Wilson was here, but I have not seen him yet.

I have just received your letter of the 18, saying you were not much better. I think I would remain there for the month, and if you are not fit for duty, get a furlough for a month and perhaps at the expiration of that time there will be a change. I would not give up. You will get well sometime. I have sent your blue Coat, which you have received by this time Mr. Robins. The Children all sends a kiss to you and wishes to be loved by you. My Dear Son, I must bid you an affectionate farewell till death. Your pa is as usual.
C. R. Walker

Letter No. 3:

Chester, August 23, 1862

My Dear Father
I received your kind letter and was glad to hear that you were improving. I think you will be able to get on your horse before long. I am staying with Grandma Walker now. Pa, I wish you were at home to enjoy the watermelons with us. They are so large and nice. We go to school every day. Pa, do you think that I improve in my writing? We have had a very good rain and the corn looks very nice. I think we will have a good crop of corn. Uncle James will be home today with 50 bushels of salt. Grandma Walker has made a little salt. It is the color of brown sugar. Uncle James has been hauling wood for the factory, and they give him one bushel of salt and 1 dollar to every cord of wood. Grandma Walker sent your coat to you. I suppose you got it. She is going to get Miss Susan to cover your cap for you. We made some very nice cider the other day for vinegar. It makes very nice vinegar. Grandma Walker sends her love to you. Buddy and James sends a kiss to you. Dear Pa, I send my best love and a kiss. I must bring my letter to a close. From your affectionate little daughter
Fannie

Letter No. 4:

Chester, September 6, 1862

My Dear Father
I received your letter and was glad to hear that you were improving so fast. I have been up to Grandma Rainey’s for the last week. Aunt Fannie went up there and took me with her. I had a very nice time. Pa, I wish you could see Willie. He is so sweet. He tries so hard to talk. He and Walker get on pretty well. Sometimes they fall out and fight. I suppose you have heard of the big fight in Virginia. We have heard no special news yet, only William Donuvant is wounded. Capt Strait is wounded. We have not heard from uncle William yet, but I suppose he is unhurt. Pa, I want to see you so bad. I am now staying with Aunt Fannie. I have been staying with Grandma Walker. She was so glad to hear that you could ride horseback. We were all glad. Pa, Grandma Walker got a letter from cousin Cattie and Mr Johnston wrote two pages in it. He said that he wanted me to come and stay sometime with him and cousin Cattie. Pa, I would like for you to get a furlough and come home. Do you think you will have to go to Virginia? I hope not. A dispatch came last night that McClelland was killed. Louisa Walker is nursing Willie now. Aunt Fannie sent the other Louisa home. Norris Alexander has been quite sick. He has fever. Rudy and James send a kiss to you. We are all well. Aunt Fannie sends her love to you. From your affectionate daughter
Fannie

P.S. News came yesterday that Mr Brandt and Mr Scott Wilson are wounded very badly.

Letter No. 5:

September the 8 1862, Chester

Dear Son
We are all well this morning. I will send your Cap this day. I could not get blue nor gray in town. And oil cloth, there is no such a thing. I will send you a box of nice apples of your trees. They are very fine. The Black people is going ahead pulling fodder. There will be a great crop of fodder. It is pit up in good fix, dry, and well cured. I was at Church yesterday and I saw Mr Edward McLure. I gave him your best respects. He told me to return his best respects to you. He was happy to hear that you were improving. He hope you would get well. He looks very badly. He said would go back this week if he was able. He is very thin and yellow. I hope if you feel like taking sick you will leave immediately for home. It is reported that Mr Scott Wilson is wounded. Colonel Means lived two days if he was wounded he is not brought on yet. The Children is all well at present.

Dear son, I must bid you an affectionate farewell. Your Father is as usual.
C. R. Walker

Letter No. 6:

September the 17 1862, Chester

Dear Son
After my Respect to you were all well at present. Thanks be to God for his goodness to us. Your Children is well. I sent the little boys to see their Grandmother Rany yesterday. They are to stay until Monday the 22. Fanney and little Willy is well. The Black Volunteers left Chester yesterday for the coasts of Charleston to labor in the breastworks on the Islands. Your man Cesar is there. Every sixth one was taken that worked on the public roads. The Commissioner of the roads made a return of the hands he worked and draw the sixth one. You worked Seven hands and drew one. I hope you will try and find out Cesar where he is. John Chambers, the overseer of those that went from Chester, and Taylor Gilmore has something to do with it too. Cesar went off very Soldier like with his knapsack on his back and a gray short coat. I sent him away in a good fix for the short notice I had. If he gets sick, I would wish him sent home.

Dear Son, it is a source of Comfort to me to hear from you that you are improving. I hope you will be well again. The Children is so anxious that you will walk again and be well. It is reported that Jackson has had another fight. The last we heard of him, he was in Maryland going on. I fear he will meet with a trap. Robert White was killed. Garnerson, Randolph Pye is killed. A great many of our acquaintances is killed. It is awful to hear of. Dr. Reedy went on after the fight to attend on the wounded. Scott Wilson is wounded in both legs, but the bones is not broke. Those that has to go to Virginia may never expect to return again home. J. D. has been sick again. Had one of his bilious spells. He went to Bethesda on Friday to the Communion and was taken sick there, but he is better and is gone to Columbia. He is one of the members of the board of trustees of the Seminary, and making some temporary provision for instruction of the department of theology. I think he will hardly go to Camps if he is wise.

Dear Son, I am very anxious to hear from you. I sent you a box of fruit, your Cap, and I have not heard that you have received it yet. I wrote to you the 5 and I sent you a blue uniform Coat. I would be glad if you would say to me when you received an article, that would tell. It keep me in suspense. I will send the clothes you want when I have a good opportunity. It is not often I know the troopers is here. I am very little in public. I would be glad if you could procure a pair of Shoes for the little Boys, as they are so hard to get here. They will need them. If you have received the Cap, I would like to know if it suited you. I sent it the 8. I wish you would inquire the price of salt. James McLure has been to Charleston since he came from the salt works. I have not heard if he called to see you. I have seen Samuel Banks. He looks very badly. He was at Church at Purity.

Our Blacky people is getting along with the fodder, but it is so dry the earth is a bed of dust.

Dear Son, since I have been writing I have received your letter of the 10 which satisfied me about the Box. I suppose you are unhappy about Fanney, but it is a matter of no notice. I suppose Fanney did not have her lesson in the morning and Mrs McDonald told her she had not got her lesson and told her she must get it over again. She had not studied it. That was what Freddy told me, but I will send for Fanny shortly and tell her she must not write little things. I will see Mrs Reedy and hear such little things not spoken of. I suppose Fanney has no one to hear her lesson in the morning. I hear the Boys every morning or little James would cry every day. It is satisfaction to hear from you and hear you are doing well. Station I suppose you are not witht the Company. How do they like your being absent? Dear Son, I am always with you. My prayer is that the Lord may be your helper in every time of need.
Your affectionate Mother
C. R. Walker

Letter No. 7:

Columbia, 9th Octr. 1862

My dear Sir
I received your letter and it has been submitted to the young ladies. Upon a full consideration between them, Mrs. Reynolds, & myself, the conclusion arrived at is that Fanny is of too tender an age to be placed at a boarding school, even under the circumstances she might come to us. Early associations connected with the memory of her Mother, in conjunction with others, would make her a most acceptable inmate of our family. But, my dear Doctr, the young ladies have tried this on two instances before and found it did not do well. If children like her were to be left at large amongst others so much older, who of necessity cannot always be under the eye of anxious solicitude, it might be well enough. But with Jane & Sophia, the change is too sacred to admit of this, and hence the trouble of mind to them, experience in the two cases above referred to. So satisfied were they of the unfavorable influences which may and do operate upon those so young that in both the instances referred to, they advised a return for a little longer to those more consonant with their tender years.

With full appreciation of the confidence which would contrast to their keeping a charge so precious and at the same time a lively sense of the responsibility involved, based upon experience, the ladies advise that she should be kept at home for at least another year.

And now a few remarks from me which you will readily understand. Columbia is well populated just now, and of course there will be found at all times rather more than the ordinary amount of the diseases incident to childhood. It does seem to me that those who come here from the country and smaller towns are more likely to be subject to their influence than residents. In this I may be mistaken, but on one thing there can be none, that each year fo age brings with it somewhat of an increased resistance to the attacks referred to, after children have reached the tenth or twelfth. My friend Dr. R. Gibbs Jr. has lost this morning a lovely child, his oldest, a girl about ten, of Diptheria. Every now and then we hear of such cases. Not often, but still frequently enough to make parents anxious. Besides, you know that in times like the present, the Rail Road cars are not unattended with some risk to children. Upon the whole, unless there be some urgency, I would say the best place for Fanny for another year is with her Aunt.

With kindest regards to your family & yourself
I remain, Dear Sir
Truly Yours
Wm. Reynolds