The following transcript is an edited version of a transcript posted on the Private Voices website. I corrected spelling, grammar and format to improve readability. The original transcript is available HERE.
BACKGROUND: Samuel James Guy was one of six brothers who served in Company I, 51st Regiment North Carolina Troops. He enlisted in Cumberland County as a private on April 21, 1862 at age 30. Samuel was assigned duty guarding government stores in Fayetteville from August 20, 1862 to August 31, 1863. In September 1863, Guy joined his company in Charleston. He was soon admitted to the hospital in that city and discharged on November 11, 1863, due to a hip injury sustained in a wagon accident eight years before the war.
Guy wrote the following letter, requesting a discharge, on November 12, 1862.
Nov the 12 1862
Governor Vance
Dear Sir,
By request of my doctor, I drop you a few lines for information. I have been under his hands for several years and more so in the last six months. I suffer very much with the rheumatism in my hip and my liver. He advised me to get a discharge or be detailed to a farm, to my one or some one else, that I could do more good at that than anything else, for I warnt fit for service nor never would be again. I have been in service for six months and has been of no service at tall of any importance. Dear sir, if this meets with my request, I will send you a certificate from my doctor. Please grant me this, if you please, as my health is very feeble, and I have five brothers in the same company and no one at home to care on a farm. I am now in Fayetteville as a guard but can’t be of much importance. Please answer this and give me your advice. Please excuse bad writing and bad spelling and I remain yours truly until death.
Samuel James Guy to Governor Vance Raleigh NC
Cumberland County direct your answer to Fayetteville N C
The original transcript is available as part of the Zebulon Baird Vance Papers on Private Voices (https://altchive.org/node/298).
Vance 11: Samuel Guy to Zebulon Vance
Transcriber: Michael Ellis
Transcription Date: August, 2010
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