Eliza Blue's Letter in John Culver's Pension Case

Dougald McCommick was overseer on the place which he belonged several years before the War and he says his eyes were affected at that time.

Calvin Blue was boarding at John Culver’s master about 1842, teaching school and he say he was wearing green shades over his eyes at that time and it can be proved by a great many others. All of the names I have mentioned are good reliable citizens, strict members of the church. He was with his young master in the Confederate army at Vicksburg as waiter and several of the men that was in the same company with him says his eyes was affected then. The witness that testified in his case knew that he was weak eyed before the War for the most of them lived on the same place with him, two of them his brothers and his young master. I was raised in a mile of where he lived and I knew it and they had a better chance to know than I did.

The reason it was kept a secret, they knew it was fraud and since they got the money, they say they are not uneasy at all. His eyes was as good when he came out of the army as they was when he went in it for he worked and made a crop in 1866 in Adams, Co., near Natchez and there can be any amount of proof got that his eyes was affected before the War by both white and black. If the government wants any information it would be best not to write to any post master as some of them has been accused of being interested in the claim. They were told when they were trying to get evidence for him at first he was weak eyed before the war and they said it made no difference so they took him in the army. I live 14 miles from Brookhaven, 1 1/2 miles from the Union Church and Brookhaven Road, south east of Caseyville near Printiss Buie’s.

Eliza Blue