Marietta, September 15.
I have just reread your long, very interesting epistle my own darling Nate, and am very glad that you have fattened up so much, hope you may continue to improve, and by the time I get down next month, will be quite a large fat man. Henry writes that you all expect to get a minister to preach for your company. I am very glad indeed to hear that, and hope great good may result in it. I went to church yesterday and heard an excellent sermon from Mr. Morecock and a short address from Dr. Rombern. We expect to begin a prayer meeting at our church in the evening so as not to interfere with the Methodist meeting which is still kept up in the mornings, and next Monday Dr. Rombern has promised to keep up or rather to begin a meeting which we hope will revive our poor dead church. I hear Willie Seymoure wants to join your co. I hope you will so fix it, that he can get in, for I understand that he is very pious, and you want some praying men in your company.
You say in your letter that Hardee wants you to sell your cotton [1] to him for 45 or 50 cents. Pa says he thinks if you will only hold on a while longer that you can get a dollar per pound, so if you can possibly do without the money now, I would advise you to keep your cotton longer. Don't you make enough money in the service to supply our wants?
Now darling I want you to pay particular attention to what I about to say. Henry says that Aunty is trying to get board at Miss Satilla's in order that I should have the only room (except ma's) with a fireplace at Thorn Hall. Now that won't do at all, for ma invited her down there to spend the winter with her. Now I want you to write yourself (or else give me permission to do so) to Mr. Jack Dunwody and ask him to let us have the use of his lower rooms (a part of this house) for the Winter. Mamie says if we can get it, that she will take her woman Mary Ann to do our washing and cooking, and pa will furnish us with our rice and potatoes, and won't you be willing to furnish us with the other provisions? You see we can get one or two of our cows from White Oak, and make our own butter and milk and if you agree to all this when your father comes out to kill beeves and hogs for the Winter you can stop some of the meat for our use. You say I have been splurging on pa this Summer. Now this would be a good way to stop the splurging and Mamie's family and yours could live very happily there, and have a comfortable home for you and Henry to come to whenever you would, or rather could favor us with your society. I hear Mr. Dunwody is trying to buy a place off somewhere, to move his family so I expect he will like for us to go there and take care of his place for him. And another thing, I want to have some place off from the water to move my furniture anyhow, for everybody says that the Yankees will be up all of those rivers this winter. If you can get the house and have any wagon under your control I wish you would have our bedding brought from Mr. Stuart's for we will need the bedding as soon as we get there. The furniture I expect had better remain until I can go to White Oak to pack it up. I hope we can get the house for then we all will have a comfortable winter home, and it will be quite near pa's and we can see each other nearly every day. You know old Thorn Hall is no winter house, and Aunty is so old she must have a fireplace and I, with a young baby, can't do without one, and it is much more pleasant anyhow to have fire in cold weather.
Henry says he will be up here this month some time and Mamie and I will take pleasure in returning home with him next month if the kind Lord so wills it. If you write to Mr. Dunwody direct your letter to Walthoursville, and if he is not there the Miss Bryans will send it to him.
Tell Johnnie his folks are all better although his father looks very badly indeed and little Dunwoody is still in bed. Mr. Dean and Miss Mary Dunwody are still here. Aunt Kate is too ill for them to leave.
We are having very rainy stormy weather up here now and when it is over I expect we will have frost. Do darling answer this soon and write me what you think of our plans. All send love to you and Henry.
Your own true,
Loulie.
P.S. When do you expect to move your company to Waynesville? Tell Henry Mr. Champness called on us the other night, he is now Major in the service. He was quite surprised to see Miss Lou with a baby; the last time I saw him I was Miss Nicholes. Lillie, Fannie and I took tea with a Mr. McAdoo the other night. Lillie caught a beau out there, a Col. Goodner, or some such name. Good bye. Your,
Loulie.
[1] cotton - while Loulie's father's plantations mainly cultivated rice, apparently the Brown's plantation grew cotton, another major commodity based on slave labor in the South. Cotton grown on the Georgia sea islands was especially prized because thread made from it had a tensile strength almost equal to modern nylon, making it valuable for the gigantic high-speed looms of nineteenth-century manufactories.