Mississippi Plantation | Spared & Shared 23

The identity of this soldier has not yet been revealed by an on-line search of records. The content suggests that he served in a Union regiment and was detailed to oversee the operations of a cane and cotton plantation known as the “Collin’s Plantation” early in 1864. He makes reference to a nearby bayou and since this is a term used most widely in the Gulf states, I’m going to presume that he was likely in Louisiana or Mississippi. He indicates that he belonged to Co. I, 12th Regt. USA but that has not enabled me to identify him. His signature looks like “Buber” or “Barber.”

We learn that even though many of his regiment are accepting bonuses and reenlisted for another three years, he has chosen not to do so.

T R A N S C R I P T I O N

Collins Plantation
13th Regt. Co. I,
February 14th 1864

Dear Brother Herbert

Today is Sunday & having nothing in particular to do, I will write you a short epistle as I received two letters from you this week and you always let me know what is going on around home. I don’t know what I should do if you stopped writing. It was too bad that you had to leave the Donation Party as you did and not enjoy the fun. Henry is getting to be some, I should think by your letter. hiring city horses to carry the girls to Donation. That’s right, Doctor, you keep me posted up about what is going on around there. Deacon won’t be likely to let me know about any such thing as that.

You spoke about the old cellar being gone under. What’s the matter with it? Won’t it keep the vegetables from freezing this winter? It has been colder here this winter than it has before for 50 years. But it is a pretty warm day today. It has been nice weather for plowing & planting cane this week. The week coming we expect to have 20 plows running. Some 4-mule plows and some 2-mule. I tell you what it is, Tivus, if you had to work with such tools and fixings as they work with here, you’d want to quit farming. Our lightest kind of hoes are six times as heavy as the hoes you use. And the plows are just the same; carts too. It would make Father sick to see his farming carried on as they do it here. Yes, and it would make any Northern farmer so, if things were carried on as shiftlessly as they are here. They don’t believe in having everything “handy” as we do at home. Everything is left where it was last used.

We milk about 10 cows and we don’t get any more milk than you would from three at home. No care is taken of stock. They run in and out about the plantation just as they please. Hogs ditto. Not long ago, the niggers set fire to the wild grass and it happened that a sow had just had a litter of pigs out in the grass & all 9 of the pigs burned to death. That’s the way to carry on farming to make money—-over the left.

It won’t be time to plant cotton for a month yet. The cane is nearly all planted. They don’t plant cane here as you did that Chinese cane from seed; but the cane itself is planted and a new cane comes from every joint.

The bayou is rising fast and people are afraid of an overflow next spring. I have been to the bayou today watching the drift wood & logs float down. I got onto one great stick & had a nice sail down the bayou for a good distance.

I was at camp yesterday. All the boys are well but none have reenlisted. The veterans have received their $300 State bounty. When they are going home. I can’t tell. They say the 1st of March. Let ’em go. They’ll earn their 700 dollars bounty before they get through another three years. I must close. Write every chance you get and give me all the news. I have not had a “chill” for more than a fortnight. I’ll send you my picture soon as I get any money. From your own brother, — Buber

Niggers get 4 lbs. meat & fish & 1 peck meal per week. First class hands $8 per month. I received 4 postage stamps from Father in your letter. I aso received a package of papers in it. A Chronicle from Ambrose.

The following letter was written by Bailey Martin (1805-1868) who was employed as the overseer of a plantation owned by Mrs. Emma Hopkins. Bailey was raised in Kershaw county, South Carolina, the son of Samuel and Mary (Bailey) Martin, but appears to have been a resident of Mississippi prior to 1840 and possibly an overseer for the Hopkins family even at that time. The Hopkins plantation was located along the Natchez Trace east of present day Canton, Madison county, Mississippi. The slave population in Madison county just prior to the Civil War exceeded 18,000 which placed it as the third highest county in Mississippi and the 16th highest in the U. S. The plantation was sited in one of the richest farming sections of antebellum Mississippi and ideally located near the Pearl River and later near the terminus of the New Orleans, Jackson, and Great Northern Railroad, providing a means for transporting cotton from the interior of the state.

Bailey wrote the letter to Emma Goodwyn Hopkins (1808-1868) who married her cousin William Hopkins (1805-1863) in 1833 and bore him at least nine children before his death in 1863. William was the grandson of John Hopkins—a delegate to the First Provincial Congress in South Carolina in 1775. Emma was the daughter of Lieut. Governor John Hopkins. William served in the South Carolina Militia and rose to the rank of Brigadier General. General Hopkins was a delegate to the Secession Convention on December 17th 1860, which convened in the Baptist Church in Columbia. Most likely the Hopkins family never took up residence in Mississippi but managed their plantation in absentia by hiring an overseer to management investments and interests. According to a list of Madison county slaveholders in 1860, Gen. William Hopkins owned 73 slaves in Mississippi.

In his letter, Bailey mentions three slaves by name—Pender, Sas, and Ellen. I was able to find both Pender and Ellen in a post-war Freedman’s Bureau listing on the Hopkins plantation where Bailey Martin was still identified as managing the property. That list gives Pender’s age as 30 and Ellen’s as 28.

Note: This letter is from the private collection of Rob Morgan and was offered for transcription and publication on Spared & Shared by express consent.

T R A N S C R I P T I O N

*Addressed to Mrs. E. T. Hopkins, Hopkins Turnout, Richland District, South Carolina*

[Madison County, Mississippi]
May 15, 1864

Mrs. Hopkins—dear madam,

Have just received yours of April the 4th. I had written three letters to you. I sent them to Alabama to be mailed as there was no mail that came this far for some time. The Yankees was above us and below us. Three miles below us at Mr. [Hugh Washington] Hayes’ [plantation] ¹; above us at Mrs. Carson’s about two miles and a half from us. The people from Mr. Hays’ to Canton have lost nearly all they possess—their negroes, horses, cattle, hogs, and some their house and kitchen furniture.

I had yours back in Pearl River swamp but there is danger. Below this they hunted the swamp but the negroes generally run off to the Yankees [who] carried them to their masters’ camp. I have known the negroes to use so much deception with their masters that I have no confidence in one at all. Your negroes made no attempt to betray me but I fear them. I shall try to keep the Yankees [from] getting anything that I have in charge. I shall [try] to keep the negroes from seeing the Yankees if I can.

The negroes is all well at present and working very well but we are too near the Yankees to do well. We are too often alarmed. Often reports that the Yankees is coming when it is false. The owners of the few negroes that is left in this section, their masters indulge them too much and those so indulged was the first to go to the Yankees when they did come. I would be glad if Pender and Sas and Ellen and their children was with you. They are valuable. Your negroes and I should hate to see them go with the Yankees and I fear for I have no confidence in none. A gentleman agreed last winter to take them to you. I consulted Gage Bailey about it [but] the negroes refused to go unless I would go with them. I was sick at the time and was not able to go with.

We have a large stock of hogs and about sixty head of cattle, two or three thousand bushels of corn to sell yet. The wheat crop will be sorry. The cold winter destroyed that stand and killed the stand of oats in till. I have two hundred acres of corn—it’s late but looks well.

We are now looking for Yankees out on us every day. Report says there is tolerable large forces on Big Black [river] a trying to cross opposed by a small force of our men. I fear they will come this time. It bothers me about work but it cannot be helped. I am trying to make clothes for the negroes, We will get them clothed after awhile if the Yankees will let us alone a little while. Yours with [ ] respect, — Bailey Martin

To Mrs. Emma E. Hopkins

P. S. Paper [is] one dollar per sheet.

¹ The plantation owned by Hugh Washington Hayes (1812-1873) was near unincorporated Farmhaven and we learn from Bailey’s letter that it was located “three miles below” the Hopkins Plantation. In 1860, Hayes had 60 slaves on his plantation.