Raynor HCA 2013-10
This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 10/24/2013
A rare postwar Southern plantation owner's letter, 3pp. 4to., written by Peter Weir, Warsaw, Sumter County, Ala., Dec. 10, 1865, in small part: "…the general crop of the country this year was very sorry as might be expected from free negroes…I have…a very large stock of every kind…what will be necessary for my use the coming year, as I expect to reduce my eaters below half…by turning off the larger number of my negroes, some twenty odd of my work hands have already left during the summer and fall and I intend at Christmas of dropping 80 to 100 more for they will not work…I am selling off and [?] my stock and farm on a smaller scale…the whole country is in a confused state, no one knowing what to do. During the war the Yanks had made no raid through our section therefore we here are better off than in many sections of the country when the surrender took place. I for one with thousands of others was left without one dollar…I got the privilege [of] hauling my Government cotton to town, which paid me a few hundred dollars…I had on hand a few bales of cotton made during the war, over and above what we consumed for home use and have made 50 bales this year planted after our surrender…which will now bring me some…$10,000 in gold…the Yankees stationed at the different places through the country and the negroes together…played…a heavy hand at stealing cotton, [and] stock of every kind…I have employed two citizens to stay at my house for the last 2 months and guard my house, premises and property all the day and all the night. I pay them $30 each pr month and shall keep them until things settle down…how we are to get along with negroes among us next year is yet to be seen for work they will not. A great many persons renting…will let them lie idle before they will be troubled with lazy negroes. I have no negroes more disposed to be useless to me than the old family negroes formerly belonging to my father's family…". Interestingly enough a picture of Weir's planation can be found online. Minor stains, else VG
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