Bone Letter, November 27, 1861, page 1 |
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Object Description
| Rating | |
| Title | Bone Letter, November 27, 1861 |
| Subject |
Civil War Soldiers Correspondence Family |
| Description | Camp Sanford, Austin County, Texas. Dr. Bone to Minerva: his appointment and pay, advice on raising their son and on her own conduct, hospitality of a woman who took in sick soldiers. |
| Date | November 27, 1861 |
| Collection | Bone Family Papers |
| Collection Identifer | A9, Box 1, Folder 4 |
| Biographical Note | Robert Donnell Bone (1832-1892) was born in Wilson County, Tennessee, and came to Nacogdoches County in 1841 with his mother and stepfather. He and his brothers and sister moved in with his older sister when she married John Winstead Paine in 1846. After a serious illness of pneumonia, R. D. Bone rode horseback to Tennessee and entered the University at Nashville Medical School (which later became Vanderbilt University) in 1854 and returned to Douglass, Texas, to practice medicine after graduating in 1858. That same year he married Griselda Minerva Burk (1841-1912) who was also from Tennessee and had moved to Nacogdoches County, Texas, with her family in 1848. On November 25, 1861, Dr. Bone was appointed to serve as Assistant Surgeon of the 12th Texas Volunteer Infantry, Col. Overton Young's Regiment at Camp Hebert, Hempstead, Austin County, Texas. He felt it was his duty to serve the cause of the Confederacy and eagerly attended his post. As revealed in the following letters exchanged with his wife while on active duty in the Civil War, it soon became clear that he would have to contend with inadequate provisions, boring camp routine and confusing orders. "The Fever", dysentery, measles and exposure were Dr. Bone's patients' main medical problems; his regiment was not involved in any serious fighting. When he resigned his commission on March 7, 1863, in Pine Bluff, Arkansas, he went back to Douglass, Texas, to practice medicine. Dr. Bone also bought cotton and cattle and took them to New Orleans each fall to be sold. Minerva was Post Mistress in Douglass from 1866-1867. Only six of the Bone's 12 children reached adulthood, and two of their sons graduated from the University at Nashville Medical School exactly 50 years after Dr. Bone did. At least eight of his descendants have followed him in serving the medical profession. (Aiken, Roy L. (Pete). "Bone Family." In Nacogdoches County Families, 172. Dallas, Tx.: Curtis Media Corporation, 1985.) |
| Scope and Content Note | Included in the collection of letters between Dr. Bone and Minerva are letters to the Bones from family and friends, report forms from the post office at Douglass, and two poems (probably written by Dr. Bone). Typescripts for most of the papers in the collection are in a booklet in Box 2. Several 19th century newspapers belonging to Dr. Bone are cataloged and shelved with the newspaper bundles. |
| Associated Dates |
1860-1869 |
| Type | Correspondence |
| Repository | East Texas Research Center |
| Repository Link | http://library.sfasu.edu/etrc/ |
| Transcript | Camp Sanford Austin Co. Tex Nov 27th 1861 Dear Minerva Although I wrote to you but a few days ago I have a good opportunity to write again by Jo Whitaker who starts home in morning I never get weary of writing to you Since writing to you before, I have been sworn into the Confederate States Service as a Medical Officer for 1 year. So you will see that I am satisfied for the present I am the only Medical officer here yet although the other company has a Physician who will I presume attend to his men from their choice. According to notice received I will be Physician of this post untill [sic] the Regiment is organized when I will placed in the Staff as Surgeon or Assistant Surgeon. My time will date back perhaps to the time of leaving home. My pay will be either $110. or $130. per month. I cannot possibly come home now as my duties are such as require my time here continually though I have but little to do. I hope after awhile to be able to come home and spend a week or two. I wish you were here to stay with me but as I have no means at present of taking care of you perhaps it would be for the best for you to stay at home and take care of our interest there. It seems to me like our business will be very much scattered but but [sic] from the present aspect of public affairs it is the best we can do. You don’t know how hard it is for me to forego the happiness of your company but I swallow it down and look on the bright side of the question. How happy will we be when we meet again and may the Good Lord be so kind to us as to allow us to meet again and live together sweetly and harmoniously as we always have done. When I look back over our married life and see and feel the confiding love you always had for me I am ready to charge myself with ungratefulness for leaving you but when I think of duty as the head of a family and a common citizen I feel excused perhaps our separation may be a trial of our love and affection for each other or serve as a means of indicating who will best look to our common interest. I hope we will both strive to excel in that particular and vie with each other in maintaining that affection that should always exist between man and wife - let us nourish it as the rose that will bloom in our declining years and scatter the fragrance of peace and spiritual enjoyment over our last days. And while we thus care for ourselves let us not forget the tender shoots springing up by our sides - let us water them with the tears of unalloyed parental solicitude that flows from the fountain of love and nourish them in the genial warmth of moral example I have seen so many people in this world that have so little purpose before them in the world and seem to be of so little benefit to the world that the thought of our offspring growing up to be placed in that class weighs heavily on me Rather than see little Watson a wild uncontrollable wicked young man – a drunken husband – a house hold tyrant – a spiteful abusive and senseless man I would rather – heartrending as it might be – see him laid away in his cold grave. I hope you will study about all these things and recollect that you as a mother have to a great extent the shaping of the characters of our offspring in your own hands. I would like to be at home now to be with you. I can’t see how I am to do so. May the good Lord bless you and assist you. I want you to write to me and write all the news. Write all about our business - how you are getting along & how you expect to get along. I want you to get along smoothly and friendly with everybody. Note well who treats you kindly and also note those who oppress you. I want you to be industrious frugal and wise. Study to make yourself useful to somebody and more especially ourselves. I wrote to some of you to buy me a good watch and send to me - if you have not done so you may let it alone as I have made arrangement here to get one on suitable terms. I have made the acquaintance of several persons of distinction here, also among the ladies - one in particular, a Mrs. Crawford who keeps a hotel in town is indeed the model of a true woman. She is intelligent affable (a widow of course) and hospitable she opened her doors to the sick soldiers and their nurses and did all in power to keep them comfortable I made her acquaintance while there to see a broken leg. I was invited to dinner and treated only as a kind hearted woman knows how to do. To day I met her on the street and was kindly pressed to call and see the young man again and get dinner - while at her house the other day she was having a likeness of a dead soldier taken to send to his mother who would never more behold her son only as he reposed in death -- such is the true woman - our company buried him according to honors of war he was from Hill County. He was left here by the cavalry. But to my widow again. I almost love her a little. I mentioned her in some of my other letters as having a son in Virginia. A soldier knows how to appreciate a good kind woman better than any one else. |
| Rights | This item may be protected under Title 17 of the U.S. Copyright Law. It is available for non-commercial research and education. For permission to publish or reproduce, please contact the East Texas Research Center at asketrc@sfasu.edu. |
Description
| Title | Bone Letter, November 27, 1861, page 1 |
| Collection Identifer | A9, Box 1, Folder 4 |
| Repository | East Texas Research Center |
| Rights | This item may be protected under Title 17 of the U.S. Copyright Law. It is available for non-commercial research and education. For permission to publish or reproduce, please contact the East Texas Research Center at asketrc@sfasu.edu. |
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