JAN. 1865 UNION ARMY CIVILIAN / COMMISSARY CLERK LETTER—BY AN UNIDENTIFIED “WILL”

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Item Code: 2021-112

Dated “Hilton Head, S.C., the Port Royal Hotel, Jan 15th 1865. Addressed to “Dear Mother” / Signed by “Will.” 4 pp. in ink on lined paper, 5” x 8. Exhibits fold-marks, else VG.

“Will” was an unidentified civilian clerk posted to the Union Commissary Depot at Hilton Head during the winter of 1865. His relatively high clerk’s salary--$73.75 per month—and reference to “Seward,” to an army captain friend or acquaintance—indicate that he had at least lower-level government connections to land him a civilian clerk-ship in the final months of the war. His prose and tone are those of a well-educated young sophisticate.

In this letter Clerk “Will” reports to his parents his arrival in Savannah, where he is far from happy and wishing he had never taken a position as a contract-civilian commissary clerk. There is first of all the expense of the place, making him doubt that he come away with as much money as he would have made staying and working at home. At the same time he thinks that “if I could stay here I think I could stand it for a little while. But I don’t know where we will go. I think Morris Island or down in Florida or some other barren Sand Bank like the one we are on now. It makes me homesick when I think of it and I have wished a thousand times that I had never started, but if things don’t go smooth when I get to work I shall not stay any longer than I am obliged to.” [Most likely his civilian contract obligates him to the end of the war].

He goes on to say that “I am a little afraid there is too much figuring for me to handle for I have talked with the Clerks here and they all tell me there a great deal of it to be done. & then there is so much red tape and a man cannot go any place without a pass. There are more than nine out of ten of the people here who are officers and they rule the place. So it goes. If I had the experience before I came away I would never have started.”

He also reports visiting a a captured Rebel friend, a rebel paymaster friend named “Jule smith,” saying that “I went down to the provost office to day and saw Jule Smith. He is a prisoner among the officers being a paymaster of the rebel navy….Jule I think would take the oath of allegiance if they would let him but they won’t do it just yet…

An interesting letter from a contract civilian commissary clerk. Invites further research.  In protective sleeve. [JP] [ph:L]

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