This letter was written by Richard Shelton Ellis (1823-1867) who was married to Anne (“Nannie”) Frances Perkins (1827-1907) and resided in Buckingham county, Virginia, on a plantation they called “Afton.” Richard was born in Richmond, Virginia.

Richard was the son of Charles Ellis (1772-1840) and Margaret Keeling Nimmo (1790-1877) of Richmond, Virginia. Richard learned the merchant’s trade from his father. The letter was sent to Richard’s sister, Frances (“Fannie”) Allan (Ellis) Cocke (1827-1886), the wife of Richard Ivanhoe Cocke (1820-1873) of Richmond. Richard had a younger brother, Powhatan Ellis (1829-1906), named after an uncle, who served in the 3rd Kentucky Mounted Infantry during the Civil War. He was an Assistant Adjutant General (AAG) to a series of Confederate generals: Lloyd Tilghman, Patrick R. Cleburn, Leonidas Polk, Richard Taylor, Stephen D. Lee, and Nathan B. Forrest. He fought at the Battles of Corinth and Fort Donelson, and other battles in the army of the Southwest. By the end of the war, he had reached the rank of major.

Richard’s letter speaks of the Exemption Bill being debated in the Confederate Congress. At the time, one exclusion under consideration was to exempt an otherwise age-eligible male if there were ten of more white people living in the household.

Transcription

Afton [Plantation]
February 28th 1863

My dear Fannie,

Your letter was quite welcome, giving me the good news of the boys arrival & of Jennie’s restoration. In one from Charles received at the same time, however, he alludes to Betsy’s sickness & to Ma’s indisposition from a fall she had received & which I suppose he had given an account of in a previous letter which has since come to hand. Our post office arrangements are none of the best & I fear that little McFadden, whose trial I attended in Richmond, isn’t by any means the only rogue on the Farmville post route. I hope Ma is not seriously sick and that Betsy’s attack of varioloid, like Jennie’s, may prove a slight one. Uncle Powhatan’s situation is a deplorable one and from your account of his present condition, I fear he will never rally from so severe an attack of disease as that he labors under. I regret that I missed Jennie’s boys but hope she will permit them to come up & pay my children a visit before she sets them back to work at school. I can still….

…a single ball at the first fire. Mildred like all girls is more of a student & is very much engaged with the little story books. We think the three youngest children have the whooping cough, though quite mildly. Nannie and sister Kate keep very well but are closely [ ] this bad weather. The roads being impassable for vehicles as is proved by the fact that Nannie has not been to sister Eliza’s or she here for a month. Mrs. Thomas Perkins is fast recovering from her sickness & she and the baby are now as well as could be expected.

Will you say to Charles that I have not time before the boy leaves for the Court House today to answer his letter, but that I would be glad if he comes again & Mr. Powers, the agent of the M. C. & W. Manufacturing Co. & ascertain if a bale of hot cotton Ogby’s can be had and at what price, & if he cannot get that or do better than to try the No. 2 we sow, to get a bale of that for me, and to write me what No. 5 bale cotton can be bought at. I will send him a check for the amount of purchase of the Ogby’s. Tell him I will get him some more butter but that he will have to pay $1.25 for lard. I can get butter a hundred or more pounds at that price, adnd being [ ] new bacon for the same price. He must write at once & let me know whether he wishes me to purchase fowls.

I see that the Senate are tampering with the Exemption Bill, as well as the House, and that I am likely to be deprived of my present exemption—but that having compassion on men of very large families they have provided that where there are 10 white women & children on a plantation, one white male adult shall be exempt to protect them. As I shall soon be a person in that category, I begin to find that a large number of children is not altogether an un[ad]mired evil. ¹

Tell Lizzie’s little Lucy that Charley was very glad to get her letter & the first wet day will answer it. Nannie & sister Kate join me in love to all at Ma’s and the Colonel’s, and with maby prayers for you & yours, dear Fan, I am truly your affectionate brother, — Rich T. Ellis

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¹ Nannie was pregnant at the time of this letter and gave birth to James Nimmo Ellis (1863-1931) on 6 March 1863.