The following letters were written by Wharton Jackson Green (1831-1910), the son of General Thomas Jefferson Green and Sarah Angeline Wharton. In 1846, Wharton entered Georgetown College as a boarding student. From 1847 to 1848 he attended the classical and English academy in Raleigh, N.C., and in 1849, Stephen M. Weld’s select preparatory school near Boston, Mass. Green’s appointment to the U.S. Military Academy at West Point was approved simultaneously with the admission of California as a state (September 1850), at which time his father’s address was given as Sacramento. After three years at West Point, where the alumni records list him as Jackson Wharton Green, he studied law at the University of Virginia (where he was a member of the Jefferson Literary Society) and at the newly established Cumberland University at Lebanon, Tenn. On admission to the bar in 1854, he began practicing in Washington, D.C.; he was admitted to practice in the United States Supreme Court, and became a junior partner with the law firm of Robert J. Walker (former secretary of the Treasury) and Louis Janin.
After Green’s marriage—at Montmorenci, Warren County, on 4 May 1858—to Esther Sergeant Ellery, the only child of his stepmother, he and his bride spent over a year traveling in Europe and Africa. Upon their return, they went to their country place in Jamaica Plain near Boston where their oldest child, Sarah Wharton, was born on 19 July 1859. When they settled at Esmeralda, their North Carolina home, with their one-month-old baby, Green engaged in agricultural pursuits and bred racehorses.
At the outbreak of the war, Green enlisted in the Warren Guards, Company F, Twelfth Regiment, North Carolina Troops, C.S.A. (Second Regiment, North Carolina Volunteers), which was one of the first three companies to report to the camp of organization in Raleigh. In two months he was appointed colonel in General Henry A. Wise’s legion and raised and equipped a regiment. On 8 Feb. 1862, he was captured on Roanoke Island and paroled at Elizabeth City the same day. He later served as a volunteer aide on the staff of General Junius Daniels and as lieutenant colonel of the Second Battalion of North Carolina Infantry. Green was wounded at Washington, N. C., and again at Gettysburg where he was captured and detained at Johnson’s Island, Ohio, until within a week of the surrender.
Letter 1
Richmond, Virginia
July 29, 1861
My Dear Ada,
The folks arrived about two hours since considerably fatigued and I must confess that I was exceedingly disappointed at not seeing you and my darling child at the same time. But “perhaps it’s all for the best” as the pious tell us that all things are. Confound it, I wish I could believe it. I wouldn’t live over the last six weeks to be made Commander in Chief, C. S. A. It has been the history of one continuous succession of crosses and disappointments. Of course you will attempt to console me with “rewards hereafter,” you gypsey, but I am at a loss to conceive of any adequate to compensate for the heart burnings and annoyances which I have had to endure. I trust, however, that they are now about at an end. But this sickly spirit of complaining is unsoldierly. Believe me, Ada, no one ever heard me give utterance to it except yourself. Keep it to yourself.
I really think the war virtually at an end. We will have another fight in a few days at Arlington House which decides the fate of Washington and Maryland. If we win, the war closes and can you doubt success! I feel miserable when I reflect that Manassas was won and I absent. Believe me, I had rather have been a private in the ranks on that glorious day than a Colonel and not have been there. But I never had any luck as you know. A thousand kisses to my angel. Take care of her and yourself is the injunction of your kinsman truly, — Wharton J. Green
Letter 2
Richmond, Virginia
December 5th 1861
Dear Ada,
Your esteemed favor of the 3rd inst. reached me this morning and I hasten to reply. Capt. [Andrew H.] Shuford returned last night and brought me letters from the captains of a number of companies in North Carolina expressing their desire to unite with me, but at the same time stating their inability to do so until our removal South shall have entirely satisfied their companies that the valley of the Kanawha is not our destination. This assurance I expect to be able to give by this afternoon or tomorrow as I have sent Lt. Col. Claiborne down to Norfolk to solicit such application from Gen. Wise, which I doubt not of obtaining as the entire “Legion” has been ordered to this place prior to their removal to the N. C. coast. If he returns by this evening’s train, as I expect he will, it is my intention to try and start by Saturday morning, as all preliminaries have now been arranged.
Erwin writes that he will be able to bring at least two companies in from Asheville so that I confidently expect at least a regiment within a week of our arrival at Wilmington. Shuford informs me that his “Excellency” Gov. [Henry Toole] Clark refused to transfer two companies to me now encamped at High Point so that he had to have another ordnance passed by the Convention which he succeeded in doing with only one dissenting voice. The scoundrel then signed the order and expressed his willingness to transfer all others applying, expressing at the same time the most devoted friendship for my unworthy self. Presume that after I shall have whipped him two or three times more before the Legislature and Convention he will consent to cry “quits” and cease to persecute me.
We have had a pretty cold spell of weather in here but I’m not yet frozen. Am about rid of my cold and hope that by avoiding the like impudence (sleeping in house) to continue free from them. On the strength of your solemn warning to purchase a mattress, I went and provided myself with a cowskin (pour m’endormir 1) which I’m fair to believe a better substitute.
Will get your articles and forward on to Dr. Patterson who will continue on home from Weldon. Keep a sharp lookout over Sarah; don’t permit her to expose herself unnecessarily this cold weather under the foolish idea that she is thereby hardening herself. God bless her and my dear wife and you, dear Ada, is the heartfelt prayer of your affectionate cousin, — Wharton J. Green
1 French to English translation, “to go to sleep.”
Letter 3
Johnson’s Island, Ohio
February 2, 1863
My dear Addie,
As I wrote Esther last week by Major McCann, I have concluded to avail myself of the opportunity offered by Col. Humphreys going on special exchange to drop you a few lines. Until last week, not a word from any of you all has reached us for three or four months back owing to the interruption of the flag of truce boat. Mother has enclosed me four of your letters to her as late as December 30th by which the glad tidings reaches me that up to that date my dear family were all well. The Lord only knows how gratifying this good news was to me. Only one has reached me direct and that of October 8th. I do not, however, lay the blame at your or Esther’s door. I am glad to see you all keeping up your spirits; continue to do so and pray that all may get well as I fondly trust it will.
Special exchanges still continue to be the order of the day; but I have not sufficient influence at court it would seem to achieve one. “Just my luck.” There is much talk of a general exchange just now; it remains to be seen whether it is all talk. My health continues “in status quo.” Drop John Withers a line in my behalf. Your Aunt is still in N. Y. but more bent, I fear, on getting her pet nieces mated for life than me out of this confounded hole. God bless my wife and child and you too, Addie, is the constant prayer of your cousin. — W. J. Green
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