Samuel Michael, letter
August 7, 1865
"Sharpsburg Aug 7, 1865
Dear Brother,
We heard of you by Mr. Smith from Washington. We expected you to take a
(french?) [French leave?] and come up but you did not come. Father would have liked very much
to have seen you. He expected you to come home. He has had a hard spell of sickness before
harvest. He has been poorly. He is now getting as stout as ever, gaining strength every day. He
stached all the wheat and gathered all the wheat after the reaper with the umbrella over him. He
lost no time only in haymaking. We made 20 loads of hay without any rain on it. We do all our
harvesting and haymaking with the reaper. Hands are scarce. We only had one hand the whole
time. We can cut 12 or 13 acres of wheat or grass in a day with it. It is a self-raker Marsh
machine. Father does nothing now but tend his cucumber patch and bring roasting ears in. The
corn crop in this county promises from 60 to 70 bushels to the acre according to the soil. We
don’t look for any season at all. We have had rains every night and in the day time for the last
week. The wheat crop in this country is very poor. It was struck with the rust. The smooth wheat
was not worth cutting. Some was not cut at all.
We are all tolerably healthy now and are living on the batchelor order. We have the same
colored woman yet keeping house for us. We are getting along in the house on the rough and
tumble. Things are very gloomy here to what they once were. Father still talks of getting out to
see you once more but it is very doubtful. We cant trust him.
We have plenty of fruit this year. We make cider every couple of days. We have not built
up our fences yet. We have no advantages in pasture. I am raising up a stock of horses again. I
have seven head, little and big, of the best kind in the country and as fine stock of horned cattle
as good blood as the state can afford.
We are sorry to hear that you have lost your wheat crop in the west.
I suppose you are satisfied with the Nigger war. I suppose you are satisfied that you
helped to whip Jeff Davis and company out. Mr Smith gave us a history of your travels down
south with Gen. Sherman. They lost no honor only property. They fought all the combined
powers of Europe and the damned Abolitionists of the North and the Nigger to boot and come
very near whipping out after all. The Democrat Party are all disfranchised in Maryland from the
right of suffrage. The Yankee Abolitionists have destroyed the property of the people better than
they (dare?) be for the purpose of freeing the negroe and establishing Negro equality, a race that
never ought to be free but to be held as servants from generation to generation. This party of
abolitionists can only hold office by driving honest men away from the poles by (- - -?) nation
and power. You cannot pick a meaner set in hell to compete with the Yankee abolitionist, that as
many as old Abe has already sent in yonder who are now quarreling with Old Abe there about
Negroes equality.
I must stop. Theres no more room to write.
Your brother
Samuel Michael
Please write."
Author
Name: Samuel Michael
Unit: N/A
Document Information
Type: Letter
Subject(s):
- Civilian Support for the Confederacy
Event Location: Sharpsburg, Washington Co., MD
Document Origin: Sharpsburg, Washington Co., MD
Source
Western Maryland Room, Washington Co. Free Library
Transcripts
document-182.pdf 
