CONFEDERATE TREASURY DEPT SETTLEMENT OF A DECEASED SOLDIER’S CLAIM – PVT. JOHN HATCHER, CO. K, 50TH VIRGINIA INFANTRY – PAID TO HIS MOTHER

CONFEDERATE TREASURY DEPT SETTLEMENT OF A DECEASED SOLDIER’S CLAIM – PVT. JOHN HATCHER, CO. K, 50TH VIRGINIA INFANTRY – PAID TO HIS MOTHER

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Item Code: 557-284

Printed form letter, "Treasury Department, Confederate States, Second Auditor's Office, Richmond, Va.," completed in manuscript and dated January 1865. The letter transmits certificate No. 5821 (as read) for $38.83 to Mrs. Margaret Hatcher of Patrick Court House, Va., "being the amount found due upon an examination of the claim of Margaret Hatcher, Mother of John Hatcher, deceased, late Private of Capt. Lawson's [as read] Co. 'K', 50th Reg't Va. Vol."

The settlement covers Hatcher's service from July 1st, 1861, "the date to which pay was due from Va." — that is, the Commonwealth had already paid him for his time in state service before the regiment passed into Confederate service — to October 5th, 1861, "the date of his death": three months and five days at $11.00 per month, together with commutation for clothing. The printed salutation "Sir" has been amended by hand to "Madam." The form bears the printed name of W. H. S. Taylor, Auditor, and is signed "per" in a bold, flourished hand for the Chief, Division of Deceased Soldiers — the bureau within the Second Auditor's Office that adjudicated the back pay and allowances owed to the families of soldiers who died in service.

The verso carries the claimant's manuscript receipt, dated 1865, acknowledging "the sum of Thirty eight dollars and eighty three cents in full of the within claim," with Margaret Hatcher's name accompanied by a cross mark, indicating she signed by mark, and two witnesses, one reading Edward W. Davis. Docketed along the right edge "Margaret Hatcher claim."

Hatcher is buried in Blue Sulphur Springs Confederate Cemetery, Blue Sulphur Springs, Greenbrier County, WV.

HISTORICAL NOTE

Company K of the 50th Virginia Infantry, known as the "Patrick Boys," was raised largely in Patrick County. The regiment was organized in July 1861 and was sent into western Virginia with Gen. John B. Floyd's command, fighting at Carnifex Ferry on September 10, 1861. John Hatcher died on October 5, 1861, during the autumn campaign in the Kanawha and Gauley country, when disease took a heavy toll on Floyd's regiments; the document does not state the cause of death. His mother's claim then waited more than three years for settlement, and the certificate reached her in the final winter of the war, scarcely three months before the evacuation of Richmond. A poignant and well-documented record of the cost of the war to a single southwest Virginia family, and of the Confederate bureaucracy that continued to process such claims to the very end.

CONDITION

Single sheet, approx. 8 x 10 in. Original folds, overall toning, scattered light foxing and small spots, light wear at edges. Manuscript entries on the face somewhat faded but legible; verso receipt dark and clear. Show-through of the printed text and signature from the reverse. Sound and presentable.      [ss][ph:L]

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