25 August 1863: “I have no one elce […] he is the only one that can manage them. if he was taken from them now they would become a nuisance in the county.”

Item description: Letter, 25 August 1863, from Olivia Andrews, St. Joseph, La., to George Logan. Andrews, apparently a widowed plantation mistress, writes Logan to ask for a conscription exemption for her plantation overseer, John L. Dulaney, because she worries that his absence will allow her slaves to “become a nuisance.” The letter provides an example of the implementation of the so-called “Twenty Slave Law,” a law passed by the Confederate Congress on 11 October 1862 created to exempt from military conscription the owners of twenty or more slaves. Later, the Congress expanded the law to include plantation overseers.

More about George W. Logan:
George William Logan (1828-1896) was born in Charleston, S.C., to George William Logan and Anna d’Oyley Glover Logan. In 1849, he moved to New Orleans, La., and, in 1853, he married Marie Telide Soniat du Fossat. Logan, a businessman before and after the Civil War, had interests in the cotton brokerage and exporting firm Logan, Smith, and Claiborne. During the war, he served as a lieutenant colonel in the Confederate Army, commanding a battalion of heavy artillery in Louisiana from 1862 to 1865. The greater part of his service was in the District of Western Louisiana in defense of Fort Beauregard at Harrisonburg on the Ouachita River, near the point where the Ouachita joins the Black River. In September 1863, Logan was ordered to Vienna, La., and, in April 1864, he joined General Kirby Smith in the defense of Shreveport. In March 1865, Logan assumed command at Fort Gallagher near Natchitoches in March 1865 and was paroled in May 1865.

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Item citation: From folder 18 in the George William Logan Papers #1560, Southern Historical Collection, The Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Item transcription:

St. Joseph, La. Aug. 25th 1863

This is to certify on my honor that I am a widow that John L. Dulaney is my overseer and has been since the month of December Eighteen hundred & sixty one that he was attending both to my place in this parish on which I worked over sixty hands & to my place in Franklin Parish where I had over twenty when the enemy moved down Mr. D moved all from this place except a few old ones and from the place in Franklin and west being in all about seventy five. I have no one elce and can get no one that would do to attend to my business my negroes have become attached to him and he is the only one that can manage them if he was taken from them now they would become a nuisance in the county.

There is no one elce on the place to take charge of them that is male white person. I hope and trust you will allow Mr. D. to remain and attend to my negroes, for they are all that I have to depend on and he understands managin them better than any one elce. I depend on Mr. Dulaney for every thing and feel that I would be completely broken up without him. I cannot make oath to this because there is no person here or near here legally authorized to administer an oath I [] you to the within certificate.

Very respectfully
Mrs. Olivia Andrews

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