This Week's Picture

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Sketch of Hammond Army Hospital, Beaufort NC, c. 1864,
made by Lyman A. Chamberlin, a Union soldier
from Massachusetts
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(Sketch courtesy of Beaufort Historical Association)

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This Week's Story

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Beaufort
February 15, 1864

To Abigail Pierce, Petty Shore, Chowan River:

Dear sister Abigail:

I hope everything is as well there with you and mama as it is here for your three USA brothers. I guess I could say safely that we now are really well settled in this little water town, and won't be traveling much of anywhere, maybe until this whole dirty war is brought to as successful a conclusion all over the rest of the county. This country around here is so much like home that it is almost scary. I lie down on my bedroll at night and sleep the peaceful sleep of the blessed, and my only worries are whether my sister and mother are faring as well as me.

Milly and the kids still haven't come in, but Cit says there is no need to worry. He works just about all the daylight hours now fixing wagons, and he's got a whole detail of men that have to follow him around and do what he says. He's been made a sergeant, too. I'm still the yard bird in the family, but I'm not worried. With their CSA service and older years they have learned a lot more than me about how to get up in the Army, but I'm going to be right behind them. I'm going to win some stripes, too.

Our Sgt. Isaac is detailed to the hospital. He's sleeping in a house, too, right in town. That's the way with sergeants. He's the hospital's main commissary man, and just like Cit, he's got details of men walking around with him picking, pushing, shoving and carting everything he tells them to. He boats over to the fort a lot and brings supplies in from the docks to the hospital. The hospital where he works is hard to describe. It's bigger than any building I ever saw except in New Bern. It's a long, wide, rambling wood thing three stories high, with covered porches almost all the way around on the bottom two floors. And then Isaac showed me how to get up on top of the top porch and walk to the corner and look around to the southwest where I could see the fort across the channel. The whole sight is like a beautiful painting. I think I'll be able to go over and visit the fort one day soon.

The main hospital building sits right at the water in the center part of town. They say it used to be a hotel for the swells before the USA made it a recovery place for the wounded. The USA took this place in early '62, and there haven't been any Rebs back since. When the tide is in, you'd get your feet wet if you walked around the east side of the hospital, so they have built a long plank bridge almost all the way around it and over to what Isaac calls the commissary house, where they store the provisions. The bridge runs all the way to the shore at one end, and back out into the sound at the other end far enough to take supplies off the rowboats and lighters that dock there. The water is real shallow out to where the boats dock, and I wouldn't want to fall through that bridge – it does not look like the soundest thing I ever walked on. If you fell off it or through it, you might break your neck.

That hospital flies the biggest old USA flag I ever saw in my life, and when the sun hits it while it's waving in the early morning breeze, just looking at it almost makes me cry. I'm so happy.

It's not just wounded soldiers in the hospital. They have surgeons in there and they look out for people in the town and as much as they can for the people from the refugee camp. They even have a little part of it where they take care of the coloreds who get hurt. This place and New Bern both do have their share of colored people. They are all free now, but they are not mad or mean at all and they act real decent and they appreciate every little way you help them. I think we worried too much about how mad they might be at white faces if they ever weren't slaves any more. Over in the section north of Broad Street there is a big shanty and tent ground that they call Union Town. They say that almost 3,000 coloreds live in there, and that's got to be a lot more than the white people around here if you take away all us soldiers.

There are a lot of white families living in tents here, too, most of them they call refugees that had to go on the run from the secesh sections when their menfolk joined the Union. In some cases, they are the families of men in the 2nd NC US, but a lot of them are just womenfolk and children with their men off the good Lord only knows where. But nobody goes hungry here, and just about everybody is able to keep warm in the winter. I don't know if it's just me or not, but winter seems to be easing up. You see a few little flowers poking out here and there and the mariners say the fishing is starting to pick up real nice too. I'm hoping to get a chance to go out with some of them on their boats.

I've already met and talked to some of them down by the docks. One of them, Mr. Joe Salter, is real friendly and told me to check back with him when I get a little time off. He says he'll take me around. He's got a wooden 19-footer that has one little sail and can be oared by one, two or three men. He says when the water is not too rough, he can get all the way to the lighthouses, not to mention the fort. He says his son, John Henry, who is about Isaac's age, was in the CSA before the fort surrendered, but has stayed out of the fighting ever since and helps him with his boat and nets.

I guess you can tell that USA life is not so bad down here in Beaufort. I pray all the time that life is not bad for you at Petty Shore. This place is pretty, but it's easy to get homesick when you think about certain things. No matter what I decide to do in this beautiful new world that the Lord is unfolding for us, I will always have Petty Shore in my heart, even if my steps never take me home again.

Hug mama for me, and all my love to you.

Your brother, James

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This Week's Verse

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Thank God, the sky is clearing,
the clouds are hurrying past;
thank God, the day is nearing,
the dawn is coming fast.
And when glad herald voices
shall tell us peace has come,
this thought shall most rejoice us,
"Our boys are coming home."

The vacant fireside places
have waited for them long;
the lovelight lacks their faces,
the chorus waits their song;
a shadowy fear has haunted
the long-deserted room,
but now our prayers are granted,
"Our boys are coming home."

O mother, calmly waiting
for that beloved son.
O sister, proudly dating
the victories he has won.
O maiden, softly humming
the love song while you roam
joy, joy, the boys are coming home,
"Our boys are coming home."

And yet ~ oh keenest sorrow,
they're coming, but not all;
full many a dark tomorrow
shall wear its sable pall.
For thousands who are sleeping
beneath the empurpled loam,
woe! woe! for those we're weeping
who never will come home.

O sad heart, hush thy grieving,
wait but a little while.
with hoping and believing,
thy woe and fear beguile.
Wait for the joyous meeting
beyond the starry dome,
for there our boys are waiting
to bid us welcome home.
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(1865. T. Martin Towne)

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UNCLE JOE WAS NEVER THE SAME
By Joe Pearce, Collingswood, New Jersey

Joe Uselin was my mother's only brother. I was born in 1938 and was a young boy during the Second World War. I don't remember much of my Uncle Joe from my childhood.

What I remember of Uncle Joe took place in the Sixties. My parents were living in Florida and I had a small home in Camden, New Jersey.

Uncle Joe worked as a farm laborer and traveled the east coast of the United States. Each summer when he was back in New Jersey he would drive his 1953 Chevrolet to my house for a visit. He was tan and very strong looking. He'd upset my wife, because you never knew what he would say next. Sometimes he would talk for several minutes and you couldn't understand what he was talking about. He would always bring his own food to eat, and would take nothing from me except water. If he used my bathroom, he would add bleach to the toilet before he flushed.

In 1974 at the age of 67, Uncle Joe died of a heart attack here in New Jersey. My mother and her sister came from Florida for the funeral. They stayed with me for a few days and during that time I learned a lot about Uncle Joe.

When he was 16 ~ that was in 1924 ~ he rode his bike all the way across Canada to the Pacific Ocean during his summer vacation. When he was 34 years old, in 1942, shortly after Pearl Harbor, he enlisted in the US Navy. After boot camp at Great Lakes, Illinois, he went to a naval school and became a fire-control technician. (That's someone who works with the ship's guns.) He graduated from school with a grade of 85.

Uncle Joe was assigned to the USS Picking DD685, in the Pacific theater. One day the ship was under attack by Japanese suicide planes. A plane was heading directly for the gun mount that he was manning. The officer in charge of the gun mount told everyone to abandon their posts, and they all ran except for Uncle Joe. He stood there firing away. He shot the plane down and it went into the sea a few feet from the ship.

Uncle Joe was discharged from the Navy in September of 1945. Mother said that he wasn't "right" when he came home. He ended up in a military hospital for several years. He finally got out of the hospital and was able to function on his own, but the only work he seemed able to do was that of a laborer. He had to be outdoors most of the time. If he was in your house for any length of time, he would just get up and leave.

Mother said her brother was never again the same brother she had before he went into the Navy in World War II.

Little Joe and Uncle Joe
in Navy blue c. 1943

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This Week's eMailbox

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...... "Teaching Mama to Drive" (The Poor Town News No. 57) certainly brought back some memories of my own. The road and year were about the same, but we were in New Jersey. My siblings and I were in the back seat of our Stearns Knight and we had no cheering section. The most vivid memory for me was how we all laughed to see our mother behind the wheel and how she didn't seem to have a clue as to what to do. She was not having a fun time and as far as I know, that was her first and last driving lesson. I had not thought of that for a long, long time. That is one of the things about your Poor Town News letters ~ they literally "dredge up" long-forgotten and sweet memories. Thanks for doing this. ~ Aggie Green, Traverse City, Michigan.

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...... The article on Uncle George and Smokey (The Poor Town News No. 57) brought back memories of a visit to the oyster bar as a young boy. I remember the bar running all the way around the inside of the room, with a metal gutter along the edge that folks would toss their shells into as they shucked entire peck buckets and ate them raw. (And the counterman raking them all to one end of the gutter and into barrels) ...... The driveway was paved with crushed oyster and clam shells ...... I remember Uncle George introducing me to the goats at the pen next to the bar ...... I was told to stand where I was while he took Smokey out of his kennel to run. He showed off by tossing large rocks which Smokey would chase and bring back in his mouth. Any dog who plays catch with rocks could surely keep even the most hardened n'er-do-well under control! ...... I don't remember the exact details, but I remember being asked if I wanted something to drink, and whatever my answer was, it was greeted by laughter by all in attendance. (It might have had something to do with asking for a "pop" ...... In New York, a Dr Pepper is NOT a "coke.") ~ Gary W. Parker Sr., Rochester, New York.

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...... My name is Rita Muller Bryant. Joe Pearce is my brother-in-law. My parents' wedding picture was in The Poor Town News (No. 56) along with recollections of my mother, Rita Loeb Muller McGuigan ...... I love The Poor Town News and read every word of it. Even though I grew up in Philadelphia, a lot of the articles remind me of my childhood. Thanks a bunch. ~ Rita Muller Bryant, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

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...... Thanks so much for the picture of my Pop Pop and "Smokey" (Poor Town News No. 57). This is how I remember him. It brought a tear to my eye and warmth to my heart. I was able to show my five-year-old son a picture of his great-grandfather. He was very impressed with the police uniform and "Smokey." He asked his father (who also is in law-enforcement): "Where is your 'Smokey,' daddy?" ~ Shelly Leonhirth Koehler, Orlando, Florida.

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...... Wow, what memories ("Big Town on the Bay") ...... Rose La Rose, Mary Jane Porter, Frankie Blue ...... All Gaiety people ...... Thanks for the memories. I've been in California for 36 yrs, but I am a Tidewater (Norfolk) boy at heart. I lived in Winona, not far from Fairmount Park ...... I would like to receive The Poor Town News regularly. Could you put me on your mailing list? ~ John (JohnnyJazz) Gilbert, Ventura, California.   Click here for my website.

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POOR RICHARD'S ALMANACK, 1735
One today is worth two tomorrows.
(Benjamin Franklin)

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