© Copyright 2000 James David Pearce
Harrellsville
April 5, 1863
To: Isaac Pierce, Co. G, 31st Infty:
Dear brother:
I don't know if you will ever read this letter because I don't really know how to get it to you or if we will ever see each other again, but my mind is so mixed up with things happening here that I have to put something down if for no other reason than to try to explain things to myself. I hope someday we will get to talk to each other again, but if God wills we don't, then maybe by writing we can let each other know something of how things were. I hope you will write to me if you have the time and if you don't have any way to get it to me, just save it and maybe some time I will get to see it.
Professor Sharpe at the Academy gave me good grades in the term just finished. He told me that I was the best writing student that he had since you – and your class – were taken away to Raleigh. He told me also that somebody needs to start writing now and write a lot about what is going on in Hertford County and North Carolina, so that if God spares any of us and ever brings an end to this war, there will be some record for future folks to know about what has happened here.
I stayed with Job for the school term, but went back as much as I could on weekends to help mama and Abigail over the winter. Mama got me to read your letter for her, and she was pleased as could be to hear that you were on the honor roll for your regiment, though she is still sorry for the fact that you and Cit and Mr. Askew are in the army that is fighting to keep the slaves. She knows you all have to be with your friends, but she says Cit especially should remember how our daddy felt about the sin of owning people.
The sad thing about things here, brother, is how nothing makes any sense to anybody around here any more. It's been almost two years now with the Confederates at one elbow and the Yankees at the other. Last week a company of secessionist soldiers from Georgia came over here from their camp in southwest Bertie and took two cows from Job and Priscilla and half the chickens from Milly. So your and Cit's soldier-brothers are going to get eggs and chicken legs from Cit's farm, and his five younguns are going to go without.
Mama and Abigail are making out OK, and I am going back over there for most of the summer and fall to try to help them get some crops in. I sure wish the war could end before winter and I could go back for another term at the Academy.
When I say that things don't make sense around here any more, I have to tell you that a lot of folks, and I guess maybe me included, are kind of getting close to the Union men from Plymouth. The truth is, mama and Abigail would be in a bad state now if the Yankees didn't come by every once in a while and buy some pork and corn and such from them. They don't steal like the secessionist soldiers and the bushwhackers. They are most polite and they don't take nothing without paying for it with good dollars or making good exchange, like boots and coats etc.
They go up and down the river all the time in their big boats, and the secessionists are afraid to come too close to the water in their uniforms. They are afraid they will get shot, because as well as good rifles and a lot of bullets, the Yankee marines have some really big guns that they carry around on those boats and bring ashore at Colerain and Winton every now and then.
Mama wants to try to sell some of her river-land timber, but she doesn't want to sell it to anybody for Confederate scrip and she's kind of afraid what some people will say if she tries to sell it to the Yankees. It's kind of easy to sell them a little pork and corn or cotton, but letting them come in and start harvesting timber might cause a little too much commotion.
I wonder sometimes why the Unionists don't come on over here and occupy our county like they do Plymouth and the land across the river. I guess it's a matter of supply lines. They can do most anything they want on the river and the sound, but they run into trouble when they come too far into the swamps with their wagons. They made a run for Weldon not long ago and hit a hornets' nest of secessionists around Jackson and had to come skedaddling back. And from what everybody's saying, they were lucky to get back without losing their backsides.
Jack Fairless has a big bunch of bushwhackers organized into his own little army across the river at Wingfield. The word is that the Yankees are supplying them from Plymouth and letting some of them wear USA uniforms and letting them call themselves Union soldiers. If that is true, that's a mistake by the Yankees, because most of those fellows that hang around Jack are scoundrels, really just drunk, thieving riff-raff, so everybody says, and it leaves folks confused as to where to turn.
There is no Confederate military around here at all now except for the Georgia soldiers at their base in West Bertie, and they don't move around any more than they have to, just to steal enough to eat high on the hog. I haven't heard of any Confederates even getting leave to come home, and if you ever see anybody around here that you know is in the secessionist army, you realize right quick they are not proud enough of it to parade up and down in their uniforms.
Like I said, people here are getting mighty confused and I guess I probably sound just as confused as anybody. I guess it could be that you might get the idea from my writing that I might not even be on the same side with my brothers any more, and I really don't know what to say about that except that I know Job and Priscilla and Milly and her kids and mama and Abigail and the professor all have to live, too, and if they don't have any government here to help them live, then I'm not sure anybody ought to blame them for trying to get along with the ones that seem to make the best effort to treat them right.
I know in six months I'm going to be 18 years old and the secessionists are probably going to try to come get me for their army like they did you, Cit and Mr. Askew. I've got to do some serious thinking, and I'm not so sure I'm going to sit around and wait for them to come get me. I'd have to tell you that Mr. Jeff Davis is not my biggest hero. I hope you won't hold it too hard against me.
I'm going to try to find some way to get this letter to your regiment in Raleigh. If I can't, and if I have to go somewhere else before you get home, maybe I'll leave it with Abigail or mama or somebody to give to you. In the meantime, take care of yourself.
Your brother, James
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