Tag Archives: slave labor

15 January 1864: “Our best protections will be our poverty and bad roads…”

Item description: In this letter dated 15 January 1864, Walter Waightstill Lenoir (1823-1890) wrote from Crab Orchard in Watauga County, N.C., to his mother, Selina Louisa Avery Lenoir (1783-1864) in Fort Defiance, Caldwell County, N.C., about the weather and its … Continue reading

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5 January 1864: “An Act to increase the efficiency of the army by the employment of free negroes and slaves in certain capacities.”

Item description: Copy of a bill, dated 5 January 1864, before the Confederate House of Representatives titled, “An act to increase the efficiency of the army by the employment of free negroes and slaves in certain capacities.” [Scans courtesy of Internet … Continue reading

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6 May 1863: “List of Negroes working on the fortifications at Fort Pemberton”

Item description: “List of Negroes working on the fortifications at Fort Pemberton,” dated 6 May 1863. Fort Pemberton was a Confederate fortification constructed on a narrow strip of land between the Tallahatchie and Yazoo Rivers, near Greenwood, Mississippi. Item citation: From … Continue reading

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11 March 1863: “John King has a negroe boy, a working on the fort by the name of Bob, and he has bin there every since the first call, he should have bin discharged when the other Franklin negroes was discharged.”

Item description: Letter, 11 March 1863, from R.C. Spann and C.W. Hamilton, concerning the impressment of slaves for the construction of Fort Beauregard (Louisiana). Item citation: From folder 5 in the George William Logan Papers #1560, Southern Historical Collection, The Wilson Library, … Continue reading

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27 February 1863: “Dear Master and Mistress, I will send you a few lines to inform you I am not well but I still get along building stockades.”

Item description: Letter dated 27 February 1863 from a slave, Thomas, in Mount Shell, Tenn., to his master, J. M. Oaty, asking him to get a substitute for him in the building of a stockade. Item citation: From folder 17 … Continue reading

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2 October 1862: “Their is act past in this state for one fourth of the negros to go to charleston by the 10th of this month to bild fortifications and stay 30 days.”

Item description: Letter dated 2 October 1862 from A. M. Wallace, the overseer at a plantation near Gaston and Lincoln counties, N.C., to William A. Graham. Wallace sought Graham’s advice on several matters. He wanted guidance on how to manage … Continue reading

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13 August 1862: “all the counties in the eastern part of the state bordering on the lines of the enemy are required to furnish at once one fourth of the able bodied slave laborers within their limits…”

Item description: Notice, dated 13 August 1862, ordering North Carolina slaveholders to furnish slave labor for the construction of Confederate fortifications around Richmond and Petersburg, Va. Item citation: From folder 2 of the T. L. Clingman Papers, #157, Southern Historical … Continue reading

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