Family correspondence – Williams Carter Wickham (1820-1888) with his wife, Lucy Penn Taylor Wickham (1830-1913) and young children, 1861 August-October

Wickham is in Cavalry Camp, 5th Brigade and attached to Colonel Cocke’s Brigade and has a complete blacksmith shop and blacksmith fixed up with his company but requires clothes for his [enslaved?] personal attendant, Robin (September 1, 1861); Many letters discuss conditions of camp life for an officer in the Confederate forces and the efforts of family at home to supply the needs and wants of their own family members in the forces but also those of other soldiers, such as clothing. The letters also show a desire to establish a local hospital for the troops like the ones run by the ladies in Fredericksburg, Virginia (September 4, 1861); Wickham writes from his camp at Fairfax Courthouse about opportunities for drilling the troops, his resignation of his seat in the Convention and in the Virginia Senate, his increasing concerns over the conduct of the war in the last two months, and the injurious effect of the capture of Fort Hatteras in North Carolina to the South (September 6, 1861); news that his son, Henry T. Taylor, is intensely reading the novels of Sir Walter Scott to the detriment of his studies (September 26, 1861); clothing made by the ladies of the community shipped off to the troops (October 12, 1861); Wickham currently at Union Mills (October 22, 1861); the difficulties of Lizzie Fry in getting a permit to leave to go home (October 24, 1861); and Wickham’s meeting with General [Jeb] Stuart with whom he is very pleased (October 27, 1861).