I believe this letter was written by 22 year-old Tabitha Duvall (1838-1920), the daughter of slaveholders Tobias H. Duvall (1806-1856) and Rebecca C. Onions (1808-1875) of Collington, Prince George’s County, Maryland. Tabitha’s younger brother, Tobias Duvall (1841-1915) enlisted in Co. C, 2nd Battalion Maryland Infantry and fought for the Confederacy during the Civil War.

Tabitha wrote the letter to her “dear friend” John Goring (1839-who served early in the war as a private in the Co. A of the 1st Michigan Infantry for three months and then reenlisted as the Sergeant Major of Co. D (later a 2nd Lieutenant in Co. A) in the 1st Michigan Infantry (three year) regiment. During the Battle of Gaine’s Mill on 27 June 1862, Goring was wounded and taken prisoner. He was exchanged in August 1862 for Lewis S. Chitwood of the 5th Alabama Infantry, and was soon after transferred to the Veteran Reserve Corps (VRC), 2nd Regiment, City of Detroit.

Goring was born in England and came to the United States sometime after the death of his father in 1854. He did not marry until July 1865 when he took Mary Elizabeth Reiger (1845-1906) as his wife, and worked as a life insurance agent in Detroit.

Transcription

Collington
December 13 [1861]

Dear Friend,

Your very welcome letter has been duly received and I assure you it was perused with great pleasure. I had almost come to the conclusion that you had been ordered from good Old Maryland to the fiery land of South Carolina but am pleased to learn that you are not in such danger as you would there be exposed to as they have the black flag floating. I should think the Federals would not receive much mercy at their hands.

I have read a few extracts from the President’s Message and like them very much. I see a part of the Cabinet & Congress are trying for emancipating & arming the slaves. What do you think of it? As far as I am able to judge, they will not do their country any good by it. Enough of politics for I abominate them although I cannot help speaking on the subject sometimes. ¹

I received a letter from Lizzie Duvall last week. She was very well & says they have had two regiments stationed on their farm since yours left but only remained a few days, burning all their fencing. Poor Uncle Duvall has had some heavy losses in his time & they seem to follow him up but I do not blame the soldiers. I expect I would do the same were I in their places encamped out & could not get fuel.

I passed by the junction about two weeks ago on my way to Baltimore. I did not see anyone I knew except the Chaplain & Mrs. Wise. She went up to Baltimore on the same train I did. I kept a strict look out for a glimpse of you but looked in vain. Have you any relatives in Louisiana by the name of Goring. I am acquainted with a very elegant family there by that name. One of their daughters married Hon. Charles L. Scott who was a congressman from California & is now a private in the Rebel army. ² I am not acquainted with any Duvalls at the Junction nor did not know any were living there but there are so many Duvalls in Prince George’s County that I think if you were to call every other person you meet here Duvall, you would not make a mistake.

We are having some charming weather now and I hope it will continue warm for the poor soldiers’ sake for I know they will suffer this winter. I am practicing a piece of music called the “Soldier’s Return” on the piano & I hope soon to have the pleasure of playing it for my friends who have gone to the war. I must now come to a close. Accept the best wishes from your sincere friend, — T. Duvall

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¹ The “war powers of the National government” to emancipate slaves were openly discussed in Northern newspapers as early as September 1861 but most editors cautioned against it for either one of two reasons (sometimes both) which were: doing so would only convince Southern states that it was Lincoln’s intent (as they claimed) to emancipate the slaves from the very outset of his administration. The second reason was probably the most widely adopted, which was to query the American public, “What is to become of the slaves supposing they are freed? Would it promote the welfare of the now struggling border States, if they were filled with roving bands of ignorant, untrained, partially irresponsible blacks? Who is to feed and clothe them, and educate their sluggish powers, and employ their reluctant services, and fit them gradually for self-dependence?” Arming the slaves did not become a topic for newspaper columns until a few months later when the “quarrel” between President Lincoln and Secretary of War Simeon Cameron was leaked to the media—Cameron taking the position that the former slaves ought to be armed and used against the Confederates.

² Charles Lewis Scott (1827-1899) was born in Richmond, Virginia. He went to California in the gold rush of 1849 and the entered a law office in Sonoma. He served in the State Legislature in the mid 1850s and then was elected to the 35th US Congress, serving until 1861. When the American Civil War began, he resigned his seat in Congress and joined the Fourth Regiment, Alabama Volunteer Infantry, of the Confederate Army, serving as major. He never returned to California. In 1861 he suffered a serious leg wound at the First Battle of Bull Run. The severity of his leg pain caused him to resign his commission in 1862, after the Battle of Seven Pines. Charles was married to Anne Vivian Gorin (1836-1862) in Mobile, Alabama, in 1857. Anne Gorin (not Goring) never lived in Louisiana as far as I can learn. She seems to have grown up in Mobile, Alabama.