This letter was written by William Andrew Garner (1833-1917) who prior to the Civil War had earned his living as the proprietor and teacher of the Hickory Plain Male & Female Institute in Prairie county, Arkansas. William and his wife, Mary Ann McCallum (1832-1899) were married in 1857 and had settled in Arkansas in late 1860. With a family and a school teacher’s exemption, William did not initially answer Governor Rector’s call for troops in Arkansas, but William eventually left his teaching position and, at the age of 29, enlisted in Co. C, 30th Arkansas Infantry—a regiment raised by Charles J. Turnbull of Little Rock. It wasn’t until after the Battle of Stones River that the 30th Arkansas was re-designated the 25th Arkansas Infantry.
Presumably William was with his regiment when they were engaged in the battles at Richmond, Kentucky (August 1862) and at Perryville, Kentucky (October 1862). We know for certain he participated in the Battle of Stones River fought near Murfreesboro, Tennessee, in late December 1862 where he was wounded and subsequently declared unfit for duty. He was later re-instated by general order, and spent the remainder of the war as a quartermaster.
In this letter, found in his pension file, we learn that Garner declined a medical disability discharge that had been offered him and sought instead to serve the Confederacy as a clerk somewhere in the Trans-Mississippi Department where he could reconnect with his family whom he had not seen in two years nor heard from for over a year and who were now behind enemy lines. It seems incredulous that such a transfer would require the notice and approval of the Secretary of War but the facts are undeniable. One can only imagine the frustration and anxiety William must have experienced by the red tape of military protocol.
[See also—1862-64: William Andrew Garner to Mary Ann (McCallum) Garner, and 1897: William Andrew Garner to J. W. Thomas)]
TRANSCRIPTION LETTER ONE
Post Quarter Master’s Office
Pollard, Alabama
June 6th 1864
Hon. R. K. Garland ¹
Richmond, Va.
Dear Sir,
As one of your constituents, I have the honor to ask that you will interest yourself enough in my behalf to look after perhaps a small matter to one not interested, but to myself a matter of vital importance.
I will briefly state the circumstances. I am a private in Co. C, 25th Arkansas Regt., have not seen my wife and children since March 11th 1862, and have not heard from them in 12 months. I have not been able for duty since the Battle of Murfreesboro, Tennessee. I was stricken down with paralysis—the sequel of chronic diarrhea & diabetes—was furloughed & sent to my Father in Solon, where I remained on furlough till the 1st February when I thought I had sufficiently recovered to do office duty and returned to camps after refusing a discharge which the Medical Board of Charleston, S. C. offered me, and applied for duty in the Quarter Master’s Department at some post, and I would have been assigned to duty with Maj. Elstner ² at Jackson, Mississippi, then our Brig. Quarter Master, but the Feds broke up his calculations & he remained with the Brigade.
I continued with the Brigade but finding that I was totally unfit for field service in consequence of still being partially paralyzed in my lower extremities, through General D. H. Reynolds ³ advice, I made application for a transfer to the Trans-Mississippi Department and to be ordered to report to the chief Quarter Master of that Department to be assigned duty as clerk with some with some Post Quarter Master in order that I might have an opportunity of getting my family out of the Federal lines, that they might be taken care of, &c.
My application was heavily endorsed from my company till it reached General [Dabney Herndon] Maury at Mobile, when it came back approved & ordering me to report to General [Leonidas] Polk at Demopolis [Alabama]. I did so. The General examined my application & instead of placing me in the hospital there with the disabled corps., as General Maury probably intended, General Polk yielded to my request, his Medical Director approved my application, & General Polk told me that he would approve & forward it to the Secretary of War. I then returned to my command at this place. General Reynolds then temporarily detailed me with the Post Quarter Master at this place till I could hear from my application for a transfer, which was addressed to the Secretary of War through General S[amuel] Cooper, A. & __ General.
My application was dated April 1st. I left General Polk’s Headquarters about the 3rd of April. When General Reynolds left here for Johns[t]on’s army, he promised to forward it to me as soon as it returned but I learn that it has never returned to his headquarters. Will you do me the great favor of looking after it & let me know what disposition has been made of it and greatly oblige not only me but my family.
I have been rather elaborate in my explanations and fear I have thereby encroached upon your time but hope the nature of the case will be a sufficient apology.
I have the honor to be your obedient servant, — W. A. Garner
Care of Capt. Pope, Post Q. M., Pollard Alabama
[Docketed in a different hand]
Richmond
November 9th 1864
Hon. James A. Seddon
Sir,
Please, at your convenience, examine the above, and if the papers referred to have reached or not, let me know, and I will inform the writer, &c. &c.
Obediently, — R. K. Garland, M. C. [Member of Confederate Congress], 2nd District Ark.
¹ Rufus K. Garland (1830-1886) was reared in Washington, Hempstead county, Arkansas. He served as a captain of Confederate infantry early in the war but in the fall of 1862 was elected to the Confederate Congress.
² William H. Elstner (b. 1826) was a native of Kentucky. He worked as a machinist in Sevier county, Arkansas, prior to the Civil War. He served as a captain and quartermaster on the staff of Evander McNair, and was promoted to major on 31 March 1864. He was General Reynold’s Quartermaster until May 1865.
³ Daniel Harris Reynolds (1832-1902) was born on December 14, 1832 in Centerburg, Ohio, the fourth of ten children. Reynolds’ parents, Amos Reynolds and Sophia Houck, were farmers. At age 18, with both of his parents deceased, Reynolds attended Ohio Wesleyan University in Delaware, Ohio. Reynolds studied law privately at Somerville, Tennessee and was admitted to the bar in 1858. In that same year, he moved to Lake Village, Arkansas—the county seat of Chicot County, Arkansas—which had a strong slave-based economy of plantation agriculture and king cotton. Reynolds’ law practice began to prosper, and he began purchasing real estate in Chicot County. Having become a prominent, land-owning white man, Reynolds was a candidate to become the Chicot County delegate to the Arkansas Secession Convention. Though not elected, Reynolds remained a vocal supporter of secession, though he did not own any slaves. Reynolds successfully raised a group of cavalry known as the Chicot Rangers to support the secessionist cause. He rose to the rank of Brigadier General in March 1865 and held commands in the Departments of the Gulf and of Alabama and East Mississippi, as part of the garrison at Mobile, Alabama. He lost a leg at the Battle of Bentonville, North Carolina, on 19 March 1865.
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