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TABLE OF CONTENTSLetter from HFC Johnson to wife Delilah Johnson, April 11, 1859 Letter from HFC Johnson, Newton Co., MO., to wife Delilah Johnson October 15, 1861 Letter from HFC Johnson, Camp David, Ark., to wife Delilah Johnson, October 24, 1861 Letter from HFC Johnson, Camp David, Ark., to wife Delilah Johnson, October 27, 1861 Letter from HFC Johnson, Millican, to wife Delilah Johnson, April 10, 1863 Letter from HFC Johnson, Millican, to wife Delilah Johnson, May 1864 Letter from HFC Johnson, to wife Delilah Johnson, July 1964 Letter from HFC Johnson, Rancken Davis, to wife Delilah Johnson, September 30, 1864 Letter from HFC Johnson, Rancken Davis, to unnamed friend, September 30, 1864 Letter from HFC Johnson, Brownsville, TX, to wife Delilah Johnson, November 27, 1864 Letter from HFC Johnson, Millican, to wife Delilah Johnson, March 20, 1865 Certified copies of Marriage Papers Church of Christ ordination papers for Charles T. Grove. May 20, 1911 Death Certificate for Delilah Johnson, March 13, 1918. (Certified Copy) Photocopies of originals listed above in other folders. (36 Sheets). |
Henry F.C. Johnson Civil War Letters
Biography and Content NoteBefore the Civil War, Henry F.C. Johnson lived as a rancher and farmer, moving from his native Kentucky to Indiana; Mount Sterling, Illinois; and finally to Dallas County, Texas in the area just north of Lancaster. His ranching flourished and he became a slave owning farmer and businessman on a large scale. Johnson expanded his interest to become an oxcart trader in Lancaster and traveled fairly widely, making at least one trip to Mexico City, in which he exchanged cotton for coffee and gold. During Johnson's earlier time at Mount Sterling, his first wife Sidney Brown dies, leaving six children including J. Roll Johnson, a successful farmer and businessman who eventually became Sheriff of Dallas. After Henry Johnson's move to Texas, he remarried in 1858. His second wife was Delilah ('Lilah') Hall, widow of Thomas A. Burks and John Warren Hall, a Texas Veteran of the War of 1812. With the outbreak of the Civil War, Johnson enlisted in the Confederate Army as a first lieutenant in Captain Guy's Company, Stone's Regiment, Sul Ross Brigade, and served with his company in Louisiana, Arkansas, Mississippi, Missouri, and Tennessee. He fought in the battles of Corinth, Tupelo, Holly Springs, and Pea Ridge. The core of the Henry F.C. Johnson Collection in the Dallas Public Library is a series of letters written by him to his wife Delilah before and during the war, from the various camps through which Guy's Company passed. The earliest letter is dated April 11, 1859 and the latest March 20, 1865 9the year of Henry Johnson's death.)Also in the personal letter collection is one reply from Delilah to her husband and one letter from Johnson to an unnamed friend. The two common threads running through Johnson's correspondence are loneliness caused by his enforced separation from wife and family, and anxiety for his stock and business. These business worries lead to frequent recriminations, often in the same letter as the affectionate messages. For example, an April 10, 1863 Johnson writes, "My dear Wife and Children...I was glad to heare (sic) you was all well but...much displeased to heare (sic)of the trouble in that County and to heare (sic) of the loss of my stock. I supposed you had feed sufficient to have fed all of my stock but in place of that I am literally (sic) ruined and have nothing to hope for." In July 1864, after three pages of detailed criticisms of Delilah's shortcomings ('...you had been selling them nails which is worth 10 dollars per pound and which I did not want sold and I know you knew you was doing wrong when you don it') Johnson closed the letter "In Providence frowns on me for ever...may God smile on your undertakings, that you may lead a happy and prosperous life...is the prayer of your affectionate husband." On October 27, 1861, he says, "We married under peculiar circumstances but I hope it may turn out for the best." The nature of these circumstances is not made clear in the one-sided correspondence in the collection. Delilah Johnson's one letter (a fragment) is full of hurt indignation ("so did it green (sic) me to think I have been deeply....wronged and that you place no more confidence in me than you do" and she signs herself "your devoted Wif (sic) until death." Johnson briefly survived the Civil War conflict, only to die in a duel over a horse with one Captain Coffee in August, 1865. Apparently, the widowed Delilah Johnson was left without means, despite her already mentioned stepson J. Roll Johnson who prospered after the war. Mrs. Johnson, however, lived on for many years without record. There is one letter in the file from a self-styled collection agent offering to obtain a war widow's pension for her in return for half the proceeds. Her answer, if any, is unrecorded. In 1899, 34 years after Henry Johnson's death, Delilah successfully applied for a Confederate widow's pension, stating in the interview with the state official concerned that she was in poor health and was without means of support. At the same time, Mrs. Johnson was 65 years old. Eventually she died on March 12, 1918, aged 85. The cause was listed as senility on the certificate, and the death itself was reported by Charles Groves, a Church of Christ minister who had married Henry and Delilah Johnson's daughter, Anna Laura, in 1875. This daughter is the only child of Johnson's second marriage recorded in the collection. The information on the Johnson family is sketchy apart from that provided by the letters themselves, and this is naturally one-sided since only part of one letter from Delilah to Henry Johnson survives. The military and political events of the Civil War rate only a passing mention. Nevertheless, what remains does give a vivid account of the disruption and hardship caused to business and domestic life by the Civil War. Return to the Table of Contents
Return to the Table of Contents Administrative InformationPreferred CitationMA83-19 Henry F.C. Johnson Civil War Letters, Texas/Dallas History & Archives Division, Dallas Public Library Processing InformationProcessed by Margaret Monroe. Edited by Cindy Smolovik, Archivist Return to the Table of Contents Detailed Description of the Collection
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