Homesick https://www.angelfire.com/nc2/spanc/homesick.html
SPA Mission
Statement
Join SPA
NAACP
Supporters
SPA News
Southern Heritage Violations
Reading Room
SPA Chapter
State Pages
Southern Heritage Links
"Dedicated to the Preservation of Southern Heritage"
North Carolina Chapter
Click above to tell a friend about this page!
This site has been up and running since:
October 1, 2000
Home
|
Contact Webmaster
![NC Chapter of SPA></center>
<br>
<center><img src=stars.gif>
<br>
<center>
<h1>
HOMESICK
</h1></center>
<h2>
<br>
<center>
Confederate soldier, Jim English wrote more than 150 letter to his family in Burke
County of North Carolina and Virginia until his death in 1864 in a Richmond hospital.
It is a story of love, foreboding, honor, and death
<br>
By: Perry Deane Young
</h2>
</center>
<p>
Like many Southern men, James Carthine English heard the call to arms during
the Civil War and felt compelled to defend his family and lifestyle. But unlike many
soldiers, English feared he would never see his family again-and feared he would be
forgotten. He wrote letters to the folks back hone every chance he had, at least once
with admonition: “When this you see, remember me.”
</p>
<p>
By the simple power of the written word, English’s life was not lost among the
cold facts listed in the history books of the innumerable names and dates carved in
stone. He endures as a man who loved his family and struggled to express his feelings
for them. As he had feared, by war’s end, all his family had left to remember him by
was his words. And because his beloved wife and son cherished memory, his letters
are now personal history of the Civil War for his descendants.
</p>
<b><h2>“Life as a soldier is hard”</h2></b>
<p>
Born in 1828 on the family farm, James Carthine grew up on the side of
Humpback Mountain in the North Cove in McDowell County as one of Henry
English’s 15 children, James married Alley M. Wakefield, and the settled on a 1,300
acre farm at the base of Table Rock Mountain, northwest of Morganton, which she
had inherited from her grandfather, James Marler. Their only child, William Wakefield
English, was born in 1857. The 1860 census reflects a prosperous family with personal
property worth $1,573 and real property valued at $600.
</p>
<p>
In May 1862, James English joined the new 54th Regiment trained at Camp
Mangum. (The 54th and the assigned to the Army of Northern Virginia.) Five days
after he left home, English wrote to his wife in the formal style of the times: “I take my
pens in hand to drop you a few lines to let you know I am well with the exception of a
cold. My head hurts me right smart this evening but I have been out on drill all day in
the hot sun. We drill 4 hours a day and have dress parade 2 a day...we have plenty to
eat such as meat, bread, rice, and peas. We have good tents to sleep in...” But he said,
“Life as a soldier is hard to one that has never tried it before.”
</p>
<p>
Alley wrote back that life was going to be hard on the farm without him, but
they were doing the best they could. Little Willy “says tell Pa howdy for him.” And
English’s sister, Manerva, had moved in, assuring her brother she’d never leave until
he came back.
</p>
<p>
Two weeks into camp, English reported his regiment had 300 sick with measles
and mumps. Men were leaving every day for duty in Goldsboro and Richmond, and
the rumor spread that his company would be moved out after only one month’s
training. He never forgot to mention his son, Willy, just five when he left home. Tell
[Willy] to be a good boy till I come home and I will fetch him some toys.”
</p>
<p>
<h2><b>“Friend until death”</h2></b>
<p>
English was getting tired of camp food after a few weeks and asked Alley to
send him some cheese and fresh eggs by the next man who came home on furlough.
By mid-July, his company moved to eastern North Carolina, settling eventually in a
camp about eight miles from Kingston. As the war grew closer, English began to sign
his letters, “Your affectionate husband and friend until death.” On August 9, 1862, he
wrote, “we have been marched and run for the last two weeks to get a fight, but we
haint had it yet...A line to Willy. My dear little son I write you a line to let you know
that I haven’t forgot you. You must be a good boy and mind what mother and aunt
says to you. I will send you a little book I made for you to remember me if you never
see me any more.”
</P>
<p>
In late August, he wrote his wife and sister to “sow all above crop fence in rye
and wheat.” Alley apparently wrote back that she couldn’t get anyone to help her on
the farm. Never in his life did he think it would ever come to this, that his wife would
have to be out doing fieldwork, but he hoped they would “get along somehow and not
starve until I get home.” He hadn’t feared how the boys in the 6th N.C. Regiment
were faring “but bad I expect. The were giving the Yankees rot all the time and I do
hope that they will kill the whole consearn of them before long.”
</p>
<p>
<h2><b>“This war is just begun”</h2></b>
<p>In October, 1862, English wrote from Camp Lee near Richmond. “Alley, you
can’t tell how bad I want to come home and see you and Willy. I still live in hopes that
I will see you again and enjoy ourselves together as we once could but if we never see
each other in life let us live so we may meet in that happy bliss where sorrow is never
known. A line to [Willy]: my dear little son you can’t tell how bad I want to see you
and let you lay your arms around my neck as you once could. But if I never see you
any more you must mind your mother and be a good boy.”
</p>
<p>
On November 17, 1862, English wrote from Richmond: “This war is just begun
in my opinion. We have thought that peace would be made this winter but there is no
such luck. The yankees is coming toward Richmond again. They have taken
Fredericksburg. They took it yesterday and we are ordered to go there...
</p>
<p>
English also remarked that he had hoped to get home by spring, but there
seemed no chance of a furlough. He was just trying to keep in good health and heart.
“I put my trust to the Lord that he may be my shield in the day of battle and keep me
safe in that hour.”
</p>
<p>
At the camp near Fredericksburg, he met up with all the boys from back home
in the 6th Regiment. “I was happy to met them, what is left of them.” His nephew,
John English had been wounded in the arm and was given leave to go home. “the hills
and hollars is alive with men and horses and wagons. The yankees is in sight of our
men and has been for more than two weeks, just ready to commence fighting any
time.”
</p>
<p>
On December 18, 1862, English wrote that he’d been in the thick of battle for
six days and was “almost wore out. But I am happy to say that I am alive for we have
seen the elephant...the way we made the yankees git was the right way. They lost
1,500 killed and wounded. I can’t tell how many we lost in killed and wounded but
not more than 1,000...I want to come home mighty bad but I can’t tell when I will get
to come.”
<p>
<b><h2>“We are living very bad”</b></h2>
<p>
On the “lonesome night” of December 31, 1862, in response to a letter carried
by his nephew John English from all the folks back home in North Cove, James English
wrote his sister, Olive Swann, about the battle he’d just endured. “It was an awful
sight to go over the battle ground after the fight and see men and horses that was
killed. It took two days to bury their dead.” In a post script added with the dawn of
the new year 1863, he added, “I want this wicked war to close so I can return home
and stay with my family and friends for this is the only place that a man ort to be that
has a family...”
</p>
<p>
On January 6, 1863, English wrote Alley that his company was still camped on
the battlefield near Fredericksburg, and the Yankees were still across the river. Many
had died of their wounds and others were dying of typhoid fever. “We are living very
bad here. We have no tents but old worn out ones and lots of our men are
barefooted.”
</p>
<p>
In early March 1863, English finally returned home for a few days. On March
13, he wrote, Alley that he “got back to my regiment on Friday and found them all well
and sassy. They have moved back to the place where we was before the fight and the
yankees has sent a large force on the other side of the river and we are looking for
them to make another advance on us soon...The weather is cold and harsh at this time
and the smoke is nearly ruined my eyes but I will soon get used to it again, but it is not
like home to me.”
</p>
<p>
<h2><b>“I was taken prisoner”</h2></b>
</p>
<p>
Although English had faithfully written to his wife nearly every week he was
away, there was an ominous gap from April 10 to May 24, 1863, which he explained:
“I was taken prisoner the 5 day of May and they carried me and the rest of the boys
that was taken with me to Washington and then to Baltimore and then to Philadelphia
and then to Fort Delaware and there they kept us two weeks.” They were exchanged
for Union prisoners at Petersburg, Virginia, where English wrote his wife: “I have
lost all hopes of ever seeing home any more but it won’t do to get out of heart...I do
hope that this summer will end this war. I am weary but it don’t look like the fighting
will end it for the more we fight the more they come to fight us...tell [Willy] the yankes
has not killed yet, but if I live this is my last summer in this war for I am coning home
the next time and stay...”
</p>
<p>
On June 3, 1863, English wrote to reassure his wife. “I have no doubt that you
have been very uneasy about me at the news went out that I was killed. But I hope
that you have got news that would satisfy you that I am alive. I can say to you that it
was the kind hand of the good Lord that preserved me in that awful hour of lead and
iron. I do hope that I shall never have to be in another such battle but I had rather be
killed than to do as some of the rest did-just run out and never go in to the fight.
Lieutenant Young cut his own arm with a knife to get off and lots of the rest run and
showed the white feather in time of the fight. I have been wishing that this war would
close till I have lost all hopes of peace being made soon...tell my loving son that his
father wants to see him very bad but he can’t as duty calls me to the battle field to
defend the rights of our country and if I never return it can never be said that his father
was a coward and would not defend his rights.”
</p>
<p>
After a battle near Winchester, Virginia, on June 18, 1863, the 54th Regiment
was assigned to escort 2,000 Union prisoners to Staunton, Virginia. Thus, as one old
veteran recalled in 1901, “the Fifty-Fourth was deprived of a share in the battle of
Gettysburg.” English’s nephew, John J. English, a member of Company E., N.C. 6th,
was right in the thick of Gettysburg and described it in a letter back home to the
family: “We went in to the fight with 96 men in our company and when we come out
we had 24...we charged the yankies where they were on a hill and in their breastworks.
We took then but we couldn’t hold them and was compelled to fall back. I though I
had been where grapes and cannister and mineys flew but I never was in a place like
this...it is said to be the hardest fight we ever was in but I don’t know I think every
fight is the hardest one but the truth is they are ll hard.”
</p>
<p>
<h2><b>“The men is all out of heart”</h2></b>
</p>
<p>
Although his regiment was spared the bloody battle of Gettysburg, English
found himself the victim of et another killer in the war-mumps. He was in the hospital
for several weeks. “Times looked hard here and everything is gloomy...our army is
falling back and the enemy is coming right after them. I expect we will have another
fight soon and our army is so badly cut up that they will whip us the next time. The
men is all out of heart and think that we are whipped...I must not forget my loving boy.
Tell him that I want to see him and his mother that bad I can’t hardly live but he must
be a good boy and help his mother work to make something to eat and when I come
home I will fetch him something nice. I have a little thimble that I found in the valley
of Va. that I will send in this letter and he must give it to his sweetheart.”
</p>
<p>
<h2><b>“Doing the best I can”</h2></b>
</p>
<p>
English rejoined his regiment in September, and in October he was finally given
another leave to go home. He signed the form giving him free railroad fare and swore
“that I will bear true faith and yield obedience to the Confederate States of America,
and that I will serve them honestly and faithfully against their enemies...Permission is
granted J.C. English to visit Morganton, N.C., upon honor not to communicate in
writing or verbally, for publication, any fact ascertained, which, if known to the enemy,
might be injurious to the Confederate States of America.”
</p>
<p>
By February 6, 1864, English was back with his regiment at the camp near
Kinston. He was well and “doing the best I can.” The weather was nice and the men
were in good health. Noah Shuffler was going home on furlough, and English told
Alley to send a box of potatoes and cabbage and eggs back by him. On March 10 and
March 15, 1864, he wrote that a box of vegetables had arrived bot by Shuffler but by
another neighbor, Isaac Magee. “Now you don’t know how glad I was to get them for
I was living on bread and meat and a very short allowance at that...I just got by dinner.
I had peas and onions today and I just eat lots of them but they will soon be gone as I
have divided with other boys.” He warned Alley not to take any more Confederate
money for debts “that is owing to me from any person for it will be worth nothing in a
short time.”
</p>
<p>
Although the letter of March 26, 1864 reads like all the rest, it would come to
have a special significance to James English’s family because it was his last. He wrote
he was well and hardy, and the health of the brigade was good. There was talk of
leaving the camp near Kinston soon, but nobody knew anything certain. Reinforced by
the 43rd N.C. and the 21st Georgia regiments, the 54th moved on the town of
Plymouth, where the Union forces surrendered on April 24, 1864. The Confederates
took 2,500 prisoners, including 22 former members of their own army. Confederates
were tried for high treason, convicted, and executed at Kinston. The 54th was moving
toward New Bern when it was called back to Virginia, arriving at Petersburg on May
9, 1864. The Union forces were driven back to Drewry’s Bluff on the James River just
below Richmond; there on May 16, 1864. James Carthine English was mortally
wounded. The family was later told that his comrades tried to get him to play dead
among the corpses on the battlefield. He would be captured, but he’d still be alive.
But, English said no he’d rather stand and fight and die before living in a Union prison
again. They were also told that he was buried “in a good dry box” on the battlefield.
</p>
<p>
<h2><b>“Tears can to my eyes”</h2></b>
</p>
<p>
In recent years many of English’s descendants have visited the site of his death
but found nothing except open fields where the battlefield and graveyard once were.
English might well have returned nameless to the soil, just another statistic in Civil War
history, but, through his letters, he lives on as a loving husband, father, and brother.
</p>
<p>
Alley lived in the old homeplace at Table Rock Mountain until her death in
1906, when she was buried at Mountain Grove Church just up Fish Hatchery Road.
Having promised her brother she’d look after his family until he returned, Manerva
English remained at Alley and Jim’s home for the rest of her life, dying at an old age in
the arms of her beloved nephew. Little Willy grew into manhood and raised 12
children on the family farm. He died in 1933, at the height of the depression. The
huge farm was too much for any of his heirs to maintain, so the sold it to the federal
government to become part of Pisgah National Forest. The old house eventually fell to
ruin, but part of the foundation remains.
</p>
<p>
But the sacred family letters survived. Alley Wakefield English had kept them
in a special suitcase, along with an album of family pictures. The suitcase was passed
on to Alley’s granddaughter and in the early 1950s to her great-granddaughter, Thelma
Gentry Wolverton of Richmond, Virginia. Along with several of her first cousins, Mrs.
Wolverton wanted to preserve the letters and share them with the current generation.
In the ensuing years, she made careful typed transcripts of all the letters, which she
copied and distributed at the family reunions held every October at the old graveyard.
Just last year, Julia English Spicer, a retired schoolteacher who lives on the old Henry
English property on Hunchback Mountain, held the original letter in her hands and
read the transcripts. “Tears came to my eyes,” she said.
</p>
<p>
As James C. English himself must have known, such is the power of the written
word.
</p>
<p>
Perry Deane Young is the author of seven nonfiction books, including The Untold
Story of Frankie Silver: Was She Unjustly Hanged? The Asheville native currently
writes a column for The Chapel Hill Herald.
</p>
<br>
<center>
<!-- htmlGEAR.com pass-it-onGEAR! -->
<a href=](ncflag.gif)
