Camp Styles
St. Simons Island
Nov. 10th 1861
My dear little wife,
I expect you will be disappointed that I did not write you by yesterday's mail as I promised to do; but you see I did not arrive in camp till yesterday morning. I arrived in Brunswick just as the Steamer Chatham was about to leave for the Island and fortunately met 'Jim Postell' on the boat, went home with him and spent the night at his house. My cough is somewhat better today, but the reverses our forces have received at Port Royal [1] have thrown a gloom over the whole encampment. It is the entire wish of the Regiment that we should be sent immediately to the assistance of our brothers in arms at Port Royal. I do not think this place in much danger at present as it will take the Yankees two or three months to fit out another expedition. And you see if they should come here we could return in a day. How would you like to hear that your boy had been ordered to Carolina? Wouldn't you like it? Well darling I wouldn't be surprised if you don't receive some such information in a few days. Gen. Mercer [2] who is at present down here says he is expecting orders every day to proceed at once to the scene of action with his
Brigade. I do hope and trust he may receive them. I believe Witter wrote home on yesterday; he is quite well and looks better than I have ever seen him. I think he is now just where he ought to have been a long time ago. If he is fortunate enough to get out of service without being killed he will have a good strong constitution. If I am ordered away and the Yankees should come down here you must not let them catch you, and tell Pa if they should come he had better get the Negroes out of the way. But he had better not make any move till they succeed in landing close by. I do not think there is any immediate danger here now but think there will be soon; tell Buddy he had better gin as fast as he can and haul our cotton [3] to Waynesville and ship it up to Teaboville [4]. He had better go up, or get someone to go up, to see if he can get a house to store it away, when he gets there. Well sweet wife I am going to send this letter to Brunswick by Col. Styles, and as he is about leaving I will have to close. Kiss my little Eula for me and tell her to be a good little girl and not to bother Mama too much whilst Papa is away from home. Give my love to my poor old Father and Mother and tell them I am going to try and be a good boy and not learn any bad habits while in camp. Goodbye darling may Heaven's sweetest blessings be with you.
Your own dear boy
Nate.
[1] Port Royal is a town on Port Royal Island in Beaufort County, South Carolina, United States. The Battle of Port Royal was one of the earliest amphibious operations of the American Civil War, in which a United States Navy fleet and United States Army expeditionary force captured Port Royal Sound, South Carolina, between Savannah, Georgia and Charleston, South Carolina, on November 7, 1861. The sound was guarded by two forts on opposite sides of the entrance, Fort Walker on Hilton Head Island to the south and Fort Beauregard on Phillip's Island to the north. A small force of four gunboats supported the forts, but did not materially affect the battle….. The attacking force assembled outside of the sound beginning on November 3 after being battered by a storm during their journey down the coast. Because of losses in the storm, the army was not able to land, so the battle was reduced to a contest between ship-based guns and those on shore…..The fleet moved to the attack on November 7, after more delays caused by the weather during which additional troops were brought into Fort Walker. …. When Fort Walker fell, the commander of Fort Beauregard across the sound feared that his soldiers would soon be cut off with no way to escape, so he ordered them to abandon the fort. Another landing party took possession of the fort and raised the Union flag the next day. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Port_Royal
[2] Gen. Mercer - Hugh Weedon Mercer (November 27, 1808 – June 9, 1877) was an officer in the United States Army and then a Confederate general during the American Civil War. Mercer was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the US Artillery. He spent much of his time serving in Georgia and was an aide to Maj. Gen. Winfield Scott. Mercer was promoted to first lieutenant of artillery in October 1834. In April 1835, he resigned his commission and settled in Savannah where he married a local woman. While Mercer worked as a bank cashier, he served as an artillery officer in the Georgia Militia. … In 1861, he enlisted in the Confederate army, and was commissioned as the colonel of the 1st Georgia Infantry. He was promoted to brigadier general by the end of October. He served as commander of the District of Georgia. Mercer commanded the 10th Battalion, Georgia Infantry, which was charged with the defense of the Savannah area. When Hardee retreated in December 1864, Mercer left the city, returning after the fighting ended. He was briefly imprisoned on at Fort Pulaski, which he had once commanded, on Cockspur Island after the end of the war, along with other prominent Confederate leaders.In August 1862, he played a major role in impressing the first group of slaves and free blacks into service for the Confederacy. By November, however, he lost his authority to impress workers, and depended on Gov. Joseph E. Brown and local sheriffs to provide slaves to join the Confederate effort. At the beginning of the Atlanta Campaign, he left Savannah and took command of a brigade in the Army of Tennessee.
http://civilwar.wikia.com/wiki/Hugh_W._Mercer
[3] cotton - cotton, which along with rice, was a staple crop of the Camden County plantations. Unclear whether the cotton was the prized long fiber Sea Island cotton, or short staple upland cotton. 'Gin' refers to the cotton gin patented by Eli Whitney in 1793 while working in Georgia to efficiently remove seeds from the fibers in the cotton balls.
[4 Teaboville - The area now known as Waycross was first settled around 1820, locally known as "Old Nine" or "Number Nine" and then Pendleton. It was renamed Tebeauville in 1857, incorporated in 1866, and designated county seat of Ware County in 1873. Then it was incorporated as "Way Cross" on March 3, 1935. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waycross,_Georgia
Map of Ware County in 1885 showing Tebeauville just to the S.W. of Way Cross where the railway lines intersect. Florida and the Okefenokee Swamp are to the south. Source: George Cram Railroad and County Map of Georgia, 1885
http://georgiainfo.galileo.usg.edu/histcountymaps_files/ware1885bmap.jpg