Martha Pelham’s Letter: Finding Colorful Details for John Pelham’s 1858 Summer

“Researching Pelham through primary sources bereft of imagination feels like watching someone’s actions, but rarely getting to understand why. He can seem robotic because his thoughts and feelings are missing. He is silent while others speak about him.” (From the Prelude chapter in Glorious Courage)

This feeling weighed on my mind, especially during 2020-2021 when I was trying to work on research about Pelham’s life and lots of archives and libraries were closed or had limited access. I was working on the research to try to get to the best primary sources about this young Confederate officer from Alabama who organized and commanded the Stuart Horse Artillery. I was resigning myself to the facts that few of Pelham’s own letters exist and was throwing myself into finding as much as I could that those who knew him who in “real time” or as close to his lifetime as possible.

It was a puzzle, researching someone’s humanity without myths, but feeling unable to read and understand what that person thought about himself at pivotal moments. How would I remind myself (and readers) about Pelham’s ordinary human experiences when I was struggling to see it myself as I focused on cite-able facts?

One of the things I love about reading personal primary sources are the little details: what someone ate and enjoyed, how they saw the blue of the sky or the rain of a storm, who annoyed them and who charmed them in the passing “insignificant” moments. That is missing from Pelham’s Civil War years, and the glimpses in his surviving letters from West Point made me realize how much we’re missing without his war letters. But resignation…

Then, finally, a trip to the University of North Carolina in 2022 and two glorious days of research at the Wilson Library! And I found letters written by John Pelham’s parents…that as far as I know have not been published or published as citations until including them in my book. The letters shed light on some of the family’s dynamics, but there wasn’t anything “earth shattering” about the famous middle son.

However, reading Martha Pelham’s letters and getting a sense of her care and love as a mother became a key moment in my research. It was like her words cracked the code of humanizing John Pelham. I remember calling my mom from my hotel room that evening and watching the rain droplets cascading down the window as I tried to put into words what I’d read and how it was helpful.

It was a letter from end of April 1858 that was most insightful. I already knew that 1858 was the year of John Pelham’s furlough summer from West Point, the summer that the cadets in his class were allowed to travel home instead of participating in an encampment. Mrs. Pelham wrote to her second son William, and most of the letter is local news and speculation about extended family or acquaintances. And card-playing! She was shocked at the young men of the community spending their time playing cards and gambling “and several of them belonged to the Baptist church.”

She also warned and gossiped about drinking: “William you cannot imagine how badly W. Lewis is behaving, his face is badly…bruised up—all his relations has given him up for lost, you know the cause (whiskey) I think that I promised you that when the new pens and ink reached here that I would write you a good letter but you see I have failed. You must do the good letter writing….for it is much pleasure to us when we get a well written letter that all is well and right.”

She goes on to briefly worry if William has been sick, and then my favorite part of the letter:

“…but I am making arrangements for a watermelon patch for you… And I am raising chickens at the McM[?] house all for you children when you come this summer. You must not let the time drag heavy or you cannot learn so well[.] William keep in good spirits cheerfulness is of much importance at your age I cannot help – nor don’t try to help – looking ahead to the pleasure of seeing you boys all together this summer, and…if you and John and Peter has a good report to come or follow you, which I do most sincerely hope for. As you know that your next birth days, you will be Mr P[elham]….

William I will send you one of John’s letters thinking that it will be interesting to you as to me. All are well, but times are very hard and I fear will be worse….

Some news follows about the bad weather and crops and with a little more neighborhood news. The closing is:

Good night William and remember your Mother

P.S. May 1^st

A cloudy morning and still nothing to write…. I am [word] that your clothes have given out and if I had any money I would send it but I have none, nor don’t think that I will soon…. Let me hear that all is well with you. Sincerely, Mother

There was something absolutely delightful about Mrs. Pelham planning the garden and anticipating the fruits and vegetables that her children preferred. In some of her other letters, it became clear that she didn’t particularly like being an “empty nester” with all her children away at schools. Thus, anticipating the summer of 1858 when all six boys and her daughter would be home was a highlight! It is interesting to wonder if Mrs. Pelham was doing the gardening or instructing enslaved servants to prepare the watermelon patch, but she was definitely planning.

While she was writing to William and doesn’t specifically mention if John liked watermelon, I think it is still contextually appropriate to think of the family gathered around a table for a summer dinner. Cadet John Pelham there, the five other boys, and Betty.

Maybe John Pelham was eager to finish dinner and go back outside to the horses. We know that he spent part of his leave teaching his little sister and her friends how to ride. Or maybe he was feeling “spoony” about a walk with Miss Addie, a mystery girl who appears in a post-furlough letter with some regrets about possibly leading her on in a flirtation. Just pulling the limited details about John Pelham’s 1858 summer and combining them with his mother’s anticipatory planning suddenly slipped in some of those colorful details. The Pelham research world was less monotone with facts, and suddenly alive with something relatable. The luscious crunch of a watermelon, the humid feel of a summer’s evening in the deep South, and the smile of a mother who has all her children home.

Other sections of Pelham’s life are not as colorful from the primary sources. Still, reading this letter on a rainy research afternoon in North Carolina was enough to break the barrier and see some of the tiny details that remind us of famous historical figures’ humanity.

Read more in one of the newest books in the Emerging Civil War Series—Glorious Courage: John Pelham in the Civil War by Sarah Kay Bierle (May 2025).