© Copyright 2000 James David Pearce
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 darkies. 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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