 Just west of the modern day intersection of Babb’s Mill and McDonough Roads sits a plot of land that has a history of fighting and troop movements. Soon after Sherman’s Army pulled back to Atlanta after the loss of that city, the Confederate Army belonging to General Stephen D. Lee’s Army Corps got a well deserved rest. The Atlanta Campaign had finally ended. Since Stephen D. Lee’s Army Corps was already positioned on this plot of land to cover Hood’s right flank during the fighting at Lovejoy, they naturally ended up camping in an area which also served as the springhead for Walnut Creek.
This was the beginning of a peaceful time in western Henry County. Campsites were raised as Confederate Generals were making plans for their next move. Firewood was gathered and food was cooked. The next three weeks would serve as a good time for soldiers to write letters home.
Without a doubt, exchanging letters with loved ones and friends back home was the soldier’s most cherished pastime. One soldier proclaimed, “It was the one great joy of camp life to receive kind and encouraging words from our friends.” The company first sergeant cry of “Mail call!” was sure to create a stampede. Almost instantly, he would find himself surrounded by a jostling sea of expectant faces, each wanting to find out if he, too, would be the lucky recipient of long-awaited news from family and friends in the outside world.
 Soldiers wrote wherever and whenever they could. The back of a knapsack, a drumhead, a tin plate, the lid of a hardtack box balanced on one’s knees themselves – any surface served as a makeshift desk. Just a week earlier on this same property, a soldier’s letter writing might have been interrupted by the need to put down his pen and take up arms against U.S. Schofield’s Army Corps located just across the McDonough Road on a nearby ridge. Upon concluding his participation in the hostilities, this soldier would again take up his pen and, after a brief apology or explanation to the letter’s recipient, continue writing.
Early in the war, paper, pens and ink were plentiful on both sides of the Mason-Dixon Line. Indeed, camp sutlers and the Christian Commission made sure the northern boys were well supplied throughout the war with writing utensils, although the soldiers had to occasionally resort to writing in pencil while actively campaigning due to ink shortages. Federal letter writers also had plenty of writing paper and envelopes, some even printed with fancy patriotic designs.
Confederate soldiers, on the other hand, began experiencing shortages of paper, ink, and pens after only a few months of war. But Johnny Reb was nothing if not resourceful. He learned to make ink from pokeberry juice or oak galls, and a serviceable pen from goose quill, cornstalk, or well-whittled sticks. Because of paper shortages, letter-writing Confederates even resorted to erasing letters they received written in pencil and then writing their own letters over the smudged remains. Another popular method of paper conservation was writing one’s letter between the lines of a letter received from home.
During some of my research of this area, I’ve noticed the styles of letters varied as much as the education and background of the men writing them. Some were flowing and eloquent, while others were crude and almost childish in their simplicity. The majority fell somewhere in between. Regardless of the writer’s skills, however, the letters quickly revealed their writer’s abiding love for those back home, as well as their feelings of homesickness and their need to stay in touch with the outside world.
Just as letters from home lifted the soldier’s spirits and gave him vital information about the world he left behind, the letters he wrote from the war front provided his family and friends with cherished news about his health and whereabouts. In addition, they were frequently filled with stories of camp life and descriptions of battles. Just as important, they often contained the latest news about other family members and mutual friends also serving in the army.
Writing letters was one thing. Getting them to their intended destination was quite another. At this point of the war, all the railroads north of Lovejoy to Atlanta and beyond were already cut. No mail was sent to any points north.
Early in the war, Federal soldiers were required to use postage stamps. More than one Federal opened his pocket after a hard day’s march to find his sweat had soaked through his shirt and caused his wad of stamps to congeal into a useless blob of paper. Luckily, the Postmaster General eventually issued an order allowing soldiers to simply write “Soldier’s Letter” on the envelope in lieu of affixing a stamp, thereby doing away with the need for stamps.
Southern soldiers, on the other hand, confronted even greater obstacles. Many a Reb could ill afford stamps. Under Confederate postal regulations, soldiers were allowed to send letters “postage due.” But many men hesitated to take advantage of this, since the folks back home were often just as poor as the soldiers were. So, likely as not, Johnny Reb who camped on this property in Western Henry County, entrusted delivery of their letters to men going home on furlough, visitors, clergy, and servants – basically anyone who wasn’t heading northwards toward occupied Atlanta.
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