A recently discovered letter from a Union general in 1864 is the only known original Civil War document from Marion County, and now it’s back home.
Last week, the Marion County Historical Society Museum and Archives took possession of the artifact after member Randy Davis found it on eBay.
The document is from the 14th New York Cavalry and was written on the day it came through Columbia. General John Davidson chastises troops for straggling and plundering, and he punishes them by requiring them to get off their horses and walk to Pascagoula, a trek of some 100 miles.
“This is the only original Civil War document we’ve ever known about here in Marion County,” Davis said. “I bought this from an eBay seller that was in Irvine, Calif. He buys and sells documents from all over. This document is a little over 153 years old, written in Fordsville, Miss., which would have been in or around the John Ford Home. There’s not another original Civil War document from Marion County that we’ve ever seen. We’ve seen copies of them, but never an original.”
Davis said he has bought and sold Civil War documents for years, often related to Mississippi and Marion County, but hadn’t done it lately until a few weeks ago.
“I was looking and I saw an original Civil War document that says Fordsville, Miss., Dec. 4, 1864,” he said. “I did a double take and said, ‘I don’t believe what I’m looking at.’”
Chris Watts, historian and curator of the local museum, said the contents of the letter are fascinating.
“This is part of the raid that came through here,” he said. “Gen. Davidson, when he came through Fordsville down there, had his headquarters at what we know as the John Ford Home. It was the Rankin Family Plantation at that time. For him to be issuing these orders, the chances are extremely high that that sheet of paper would have been inside the John Ford Home.”
Watts said the 14th New York Cavalry was made up of men raised in New York City and was known as the Metropolitan Cavalry.
“These guys spent a lot of time in this district. They were at the siege of Fort Hudson; they were in the Red River campaign in Louisiana; they were at the siege and capture at Fort Morgan, Ala., and they were involved with a lot,” he said. “What is interesting about this document is that they are being disciplined for straggling and plundering, which they were ordered not to do.”
Some of that plundering took place in Marion County at the courthouse.
“There were books that were vandalized at the courthouse,” Watts said. “They were chastised for general unsoldierly conduct, wont and care of their horses, plundering and straggling. They were dismounted. This is documentation of misconduct by Federal troops coming through Marion County.”
Davis said the reprimand was a major one for the soldiers.
“There is nothing more embarrassing for a cavalry soldier than to be told to get off their horses and put their sabers up,” he said.
The swords went into a wagon.
“They were forced to walk as infantry in cavalry boots to Pascagoula,” Watts said. “The last segment said the orders were to be read at each regiment at the beginning of the day. It was to embarrass them further. For a cavalry man to be taken off his horse is like taking a pilot out of his airplane now.”
The document recently made an interesting journey, one it may have made a century and a half ago.
“I had it in my truck,” Watts said. “That column of soldiers, when it came through here at Christmas 1864, passed the courthouse and got on Broad Street leaving town. As I drove with it, I thought, ‘Wow! It’s retracing its steps from 150 years ago.’ It’s been no telling where since then. It’s been in California, and here it is back in Marion County.”
The timing of the document’s arrival in Marion County is a good one to draw attention to the upcoming Ford’s Encampment on Feb. 24, according to Watts. The fifth annual event begins at 9 a.m. that day, although area schoolchildren will get a sneak peek on Feb. 23 as they travel to see Marion County history come alive.
Pictured Above: Randy Davis, left, and Chris Watts of the Marion County Historical Society look over a letter written in 1864 by a Union general. The document, which Davis found on eBay, sheds new light on Union troops’ rowdy behavior in Columbia that they were disciplined for. | Photo by Mark Rogers
