Download

Download Full Text (24.7 MB)

Description

Letter from Lt. D. Winters at Fort Harris, Tennessee, to Wood and Perot at Philadelphia, Pa., dated April 29, 1861. Includes envelope with "Stars and Bars" and names of the Confederate president and vice-president. Winters notes he is building a fortification to defend Memphis and, because of his sympathies with the Confederacy, he can no longer assist Northerners. This letter was written before Tennessee seceded from the Union. The partnership of Robert Wood and Elliston Perot were manufacturers of ornamental iron work between 1857 and 1865. Fort Harris, named after Tennessee Governor Isham G. Harris who ordered fortifications erected on the Mississippi River, was built at Mill’s Plantation on the third Chickasaw Bluff between April and June 1861. It was an earthwork fortification designed to command the river below with 14 to 16 guns. The fort was abandoned in 1862 just before Memphis was occupied by Union forces. The transcription reads as follows: "Fort Harris April 29th, 1861 Mssrs Wood & Perot. Gents. I am just building an fortification for our defence – I am sorry, that I cannot do anything for you but am bound to do everything against you – whenever peace will be closed, I shall do everything for you – but in these times I am against you. D. Winters Comdg Fort Harris"

Identifier

sc.0048.006_005.001

Date

1861 April 29

Keywords

United States--History--Civil War, 1861-1865--Correspondence.

D. Winters letter, Fort Harris, Tennessee, 1861

Share

COinS