This POW letter was written by Capt. Jacob Warwick Mathews (1839-1930) of Co. I, 25th Virginia Infantry. Mathews was among the “Immortal Six Hundred”—a group of 600 Confederate officers held as prisoners of war, assembled in direct retaliation after Confederate forces employed Union prisoners as human shields in Charleston, South Carolina. After being subjected to weeks of bombardment on Morris Island, these prisoners were transferred in late October 1864 to Fort Pulaski on Cockspur Island, Georgia. Confined within the damp brick casemates of Fort Pulaski, they endured an exceptionally harsh winter, severe overcrowding, and a punitive “starvation diet” consisting only of moldy cornmeal and pickles. Thirteen prisoners died from disease and deprivation on the island before the remaining survivors were returned to Fort Delaware in March 1865. [Source: The Civil War Picket, July 26, 2021]
Mathews was a merchant/farmer of Alvon, Greenbrier county, (West) Virginia, when the Civil War began. He was taken prisoner in the Wilderness on 5 May 1864. He wrote the letter from a prison at Fort Pulaski, Georgia, in mid-February 1865 to Mrs. J. Eliza Bestor, a Southern sympathizer residing in Baltimore who had two sons in the Confederate service and provided assistance whenever she could to Confederate soldiers imprisoned in the North.
Header image: Confederate officers held prisoner at Fort Pulaski during the winter of 1864-65 shared bunks with multiple other prisoners; no mattresses, nor anything to keep the damp cold air out in the winter. (NPS Photo. Source: Prisoner of War Experience.)
T R A N S C R I P T I O N
Fort Pulaski, Georgia
February 11th 1865
Mrs. J. E. Bestor,
Your very kind & long looked for letter was rec’d this morning it. It found me enjoying tolerable health. I might say very good health when I tell you we have had nothing in God’s world to eat for the last forty-one days but corn meal & pickles. Our prison is nothing more than a hospital. There is not ten sound well men in our prison. There is some hope of it getting better now & God grant that it may for there is great room for an improvement.
I am a thousand times obliged to you for the information you gave me of my brother & father & also for the stamps you sent me. I think our prospects for an exchange is brighter now than they ever have been & if I should be so fortunate as to get through, I will take grate pleasure in delivering your message to your sons & also tell them when I heard from you last, which will be a great satisfaction to them. Your letter containing the money you spoke of I have not received but I expect it is here as we have not rec’d any money letters for some time. But they are to be delivered soon. Please excuse this badly written letter & write soon. From your friend, — J. W. Mathews
If any of our friends in Baltimore would send some clothing to this prison, they would be thankfully received as we are very needy for clothing.
