Forum Host- Joined
- Mar 18, 2011
- Location
- Clinton, Mississippi
I found the following letter in the correspondence of Governor John J. Pettus of Mississippi - it was sent to him by Reverend Leroy Gaston, who had to flee Corinth after his wife, Susan, was found to be passing information to General Polk in Tupelo. The couple fled Corinth just ahead of an arrest warrant for Susan issued by the Union authorities.
Enterprise, Miss., January 30, 1863
His Excellency J.J. Pettus, Esq.
Sir:
Allow me, if you please, to lay my troubles before you, troubles that are not peculiar or confined to myself, under existing regulations of military government that I do not think should supercede your own. I am, as you well know, an exile from Corinth. I left that place under the preemptory order of the Yankee General Grant, because he considered my household "a dangerous family to have within his lines."
I waited on our army from August to January on the hope that it might be able to drive the miscreant horde from our borders, and restore to myself and many others our desolated homes. Finally I despaired of this achievement and set myself about the work of getting up shelter for my family in this vicinity.
When I addressed myself to the procurement of provisions, I found a state of general want and no surplus of supplies around me. Of the prime necessaries of life, bread and meat, there was none for sale but at famine prices. I of course resorted to a region, the Prairies of North Mississippi, where such things were to be had on living terms.
Being so _____ I procured permits from the military and railroad authority to bring down corn upon the railroad; and not apprised of any prohibition, ordered some three hundred pounds only out of fifteen hundred weight of pork purchased for my own family support alone, to be forwarded from Okolona to Enterprise by the earliest opportunity afforded by the M. & O. R.R.
On my passage down I did not find that this freight would not be allowed to pass Macon by Capt. Boyce, the Post Quartermaster, and would be seized to the use of Government. This is a positive grievance. I feel it to be an oppressive exercise of doubtful authority, and must solicit from yourself a consideration of the matter.
If we, who are driven from our homes by savage invaders, without the liberty or ability to bring supplies for subsistence with us, are cut off by our own side, even when we go back (as I have done) within "the enemy's lines," and drag out a scant allowance of provisions for our women and children, what are we to do sir? There are labor and hazard, and not a little of either, in this process, I confess, but I am willing to encounter toil and danger if I have only to brave and evade the enemy in so doing, so that I get bread and meat for those who depend on me for support.
But I think that our soldier men, our quartermasters and commissaries might venture and strive as much for the service in which they are employed. They should go, or send their subs of whom they generally have enough, upon the same ground to hunt up and work out suck supplies for the army, instead of being posted on the wayside, to pounce down on the dribs that starving refugees have engineered to their quarters.
It is besmirching the service and degrading the cause of our country. What are our men fighting for? For hogmeat? For a monopoly of pork? "Credat Judeus Apelles." [The Jew Apella may believe, not I.]
For our altars and our firesides? They have so said. But what are altars and firesides without wives & children? They must eat to live – our soldiers have only to do the same – and all as nearly as may be should fare alike. Neither home folks nor warriors on the same side should interfere with their common wants; without urgent necessity. Then let us have done with this vexatious military interference with private business. You, Governor Pettus, must certainly apprehend the evils to spring out of a friction between public and military interests, and it is to you that sufferers _____ actions are to look for relief.
I was advised by Capt. Boyce (the officer at Macon) to use my personal acquaintance with you to obtain from General Pemberton an individual permit for my meat to pass, but I did not _____ or expect you to exert your official influence to discriminate the least in my favor on grounds common to any other citizen. I can, however, but indulge the hope that you will procure me prompt relief by obtaining from Gen. Pemberton an unqualified retraction of his order to the benefit of all concerned.
Speaking advisedly, I can say that his efforts to forestall speculation have done more to foster and stimulate it than all other cases whatever, and it is to be devoutly wished that he would mind his own business and let other people's alone.
Hoping that you will not disregard these suggestions because coming from an individual, while hundreds of others might enter a similar plea I remain with profound respect,
Your obt. Servt.,
L.B. Gaston
John J. Pettus Correspondence
Series 757, Box 943, Folder 10
Enterprise, Miss., January 30, 1863
His Excellency J.J. Pettus, Esq.
Sir:
Allow me, if you please, to lay my troubles before you, troubles that are not peculiar or confined to myself, under existing regulations of military government that I do not think should supercede your own. I am, as you well know, an exile from Corinth. I left that place under the preemptory order of the Yankee General Grant, because he considered my household "a dangerous family to have within his lines."
I waited on our army from August to January on the hope that it might be able to drive the miscreant horde from our borders, and restore to myself and many others our desolated homes. Finally I despaired of this achievement and set myself about the work of getting up shelter for my family in this vicinity.
When I addressed myself to the procurement of provisions, I found a state of general want and no surplus of supplies around me. Of the prime necessaries of life, bread and meat, there was none for sale but at famine prices. I of course resorted to a region, the Prairies of North Mississippi, where such things were to be had on living terms.
Being so _____ I procured permits from the military and railroad authority to bring down corn upon the railroad; and not apprised of any prohibition, ordered some three hundred pounds only out of fifteen hundred weight of pork purchased for my own family support alone, to be forwarded from Okolona to Enterprise by the earliest opportunity afforded by the M. & O. R.R.
On my passage down I did not find that this freight would not be allowed to pass Macon by Capt. Boyce, the Post Quartermaster, and would be seized to the use of Government. This is a positive grievance. I feel it to be an oppressive exercise of doubtful authority, and must solicit from yourself a consideration of the matter.
If we, who are driven from our homes by savage invaders, without the liberty or ability to bring supplies for subsistence with us, are cut off by our own side, even when we go back (as I have done) within "the enemy's lines," and drag out a scant allowance of provisions for our women and children, what are we to do sir? There are labor and hazard, and not a little of either, in this process, I confess, but I am willing to encounter toil and danger if I have only to brave and evade the enemy in so doing, so that I get bread and meat for those who depend on me for support.
But I think that our soldier men, our quartermasters and commissaries might venture and strive as much for the service in which they are employed. They should go, or send their subs of whom they generally have enough, upon the same ground to hunt up and work out suck supplies for the army, instead of being posted on the wayside, to pounce down on the dribs that starving refugees have engineered to their quarters.
It is besmirching the service and degrading the cause of our country. What are our men fighting for? For hogmeat? For a monopoly of pork? "Credat Judeus Apelles." [The Jew Apella may believe, not I.]
For our altars and our firesides? They have so said. But what are altars and firesides without wives & children? They must eat to live – our soldiers have only to do the same – and all as nearly as may be should fare alike. Neither home folks nor warriors on the same side should interfere with their common wants; without urgent necessity. Then let us have done with this vexatious military interference with private business. You, Governor Pettus, must certainly apprehend the evils to spring out of a friction between public and military interests, and it is to you that sufferers _____ actions are to look for relief.
I was advised by Capt. Boyce (the officer at Macon) to use my personal acquaintance with you to obtain from General Pemberton an individual permit for my meat to pass, but I did not _____ or expect you to exert your official influence to discriminate the least in my favor on grounds common to any other citizen. I can, however, but indulge the hope that you will procure me prompt relief by obtaining from Gen. Pemberton an unqualified retraction of his order to the benefit of all concerned.
Speaking advisedly, I can say that his efforts to forestall speculation have done more to foster and stimulate it than all other cases whatever, and it is to be devoutly wished that he would mind his own business and let other people's alone.
Hoping that you will not disregard these suggestions because coming from an individual, while hundreds of others might enter a similar plea I remain with profound respect,
Your obt. Servt.,
L.B. Gaston
John J. Pettus Correspondence
Series 757, Box 943, Folder 10
Bringing the