1864 Confederate CIVIL WAR LETTER from Petersburg, VA - Excellent War Content

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1864 Confederate CIVIL WAR LETTER from Petersburg, VA - Excellent War Content:
$110.00

Civil War Letter

Elizabeth Ann (Badger) Wetmore

This Confederate Civil War letter was written by 79 year-old Dr. John Beckwith (1785-1870), the son of Capt. John Beckwith (1754-1834) and Chloe Bosworth (1759-1834) of Poughkeepsie, New York. According to a biographical sketch on Rootsweb, Johnwas admitted to the practice of medicine at New London, Connecticut. He left Poughkeepsie on a trip south for his health. After marrying Margaret Cogdell Stanley (1787-1864) in 1807 in New Berne, North Carolina, he served as a surgeon with the New York forces in the War of 1812. They had four daughters and two sons. They were: Thomas Stanly (1813-1884), Katherine (“Kate”) Devereaux (1822-Aft1865), Cornelia (1831-1907), John Watrous (1831-1890), Nancy (“Nannie”) Cogdell (18xx-Aft1865), and one other.

The Beckwith’s lived first “at New Bern, North Carolina, beginning in 1808, at times in Newton, Hillsborough, Salisbury, Fayetteville, and in 1823 to Raleigh, North Carolina. He was one of the commissioners for building the capitol in Raleigh which was completed in 1840. They finally settled during January, 1845 in Petersburg, Virginia. In 1846, John Beckwith, M.D. and his son Thomas Stanly Beckwith, M.D., (also a newcomer to Petersburg and a doctor) engaged in a suicidal dispute with the Petersburg Medical Faculty, a group of regular physicians who, like physicians elsewhere, had recently organized to define and combat quackery. High on the Medical Faculty’s new list of unethical practices was the promotion of “secret nostrums.” The Beckwith’s meantime had made a considerable investment in the production and sale of Beckwith’s Anti-Dyspeptic Pills, and they saw the Medical Faculty’s code of ethics as a mere pretext for driving out competitors. The Beckwiths stood their ground and took the dreary consequences. Consultations were refused, and patients grew fainthearted. Creditors closed in, and the Beckwith’s furniture, evidently a gift from Edmund Ruffin, was sacrificed to pay them. Dr. Beckwith soon tired of fighting, and he retired from the practice of medicine, leaving his large family with very little income. Into the breach stepped the Beckwith women.”

Mrs. Margaret Beckwithtried taking in boarders, but had to give it up “as her old fashion-open-house-entertaining was not money-making.” Daughter Kate, for her part, tried to get some cash out of her accomplishments. She opened a school for young ladies in which she taught piano, voice, guitar, and drawing, and she was apparently a popular teacher. But she, too, failed to make enough to solve the family’s continual financial problems. Finally, though with regret, Kate finally accepted a marriage proposal from a rich widower, Henry Spaulding, and their 1857 marriage brought enough money to the family to actually pay off the Beckwith mortgage in Petersburg. Mrs. Beckwith died in Petersburg in 1864, and in 1865 Dr. Beckwith and his daughters Cornelia and Nancy went to live with his daughter Katherine Spaulding, at Riverdale (now The Bronx), New York.

Though he does not mention him in this letter, John’s son,John Watrous Beckwith(1831-1890) served as chaplain on the staff of General William J. Hardee and was somewhere in Georgia at the time this letter was written.

John wrote the letter to Elizabeth Ann (Badger) Wetmore (1797-1865), the widow of Ichabod Wetmore (1792-1851). She was the daughter of Thomas & Lydia (Cogdell) Badger of Newberne, North Carolina.

TRANSCRIPTION

Petersburg [Virginia]
March 4th, 1864

My dear Madam,

I received your kind letter of the 27th ult., conveying your brother’s kind invitation to repeat my visit to him this spring. ¹I need hardly say how much pleasure I should take in accepting it, & the more particularly if I could appoint the time, but such is the state of the country just now that it seems impossible to do so.

The Yankees, it is believed, are about making an attack upon Richmond & if they should succeed in taking it, they will of course take Petersburg & I ought, you know, to be here to share the fate of my family. They have cut off the wires between Richmond & Gen’l Lee and much anxiety seems to exist on account of it & the enemy being between the two, both information & provisions may be lacking.

It is thought that Butler & Meade will unite their forces from different directions. Still our people are by no means desponding. All the troops have gone over from this neighborhood. I cannot say that I am alarmed, tho’ somewhat anxious. If the Yankees get here, we must take chances & fate of thousands of others. Your place must share the fate of this. Tell your brother that although he & I cannot fight, we can bear as much and as manfully as others.However, I have full faith in Generals & men, & if they do take us, they get some hard blows in return.

Tell Mr. Badger not to feel discouraged on account of the loss of some pound of flesh. I have lost as much and am as well as ever. Want of the usual amount of exercise is probably the chief cause of it. He is the only old friend with whom I have any communication. Whether we have health or disease, we cannot expect to live another half century and should we reach home in safety, it is of little consequence whether we remain to see the end of this war or not. One great contributor to long life is cheerfulness & resignation. He knows the old saying of the soldiers in battle — “Trust in God & keep your powder dry.”

If I should find an opportunity to visit Mr. Badger, I will give him due notice of it. Give my best love to him & to Mrs. Badger. The girls request me to include them also. We bestow a good share upon yourself. Should any others of our old friends remember us, please to offer them my best love.

Truly & affectionately yours, — John Beckwith

Mrs. E. A. Wetmore, Raleigh, North Carolina

¹ Elizabeth’s brother wasGeorge Edmund Badger(1795-1866) who endorsed Dr. Beckwith’s Anti-Dyspeptic Pills. Badger was a US Senator from North Carolina (1846-1855) and served as Harrison’s and Tyler’s Secretary of the Navy in 1841.

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