{"id":101127,"date":"2021-11-02T02:18:32","date_gmt":"2021-11-02T07:18:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.cw-chronicles.com\/blog\/?p=101127"},"modified":"2021-04-15T20:39:05","modified_gmt":"2021-04-16T01:39:05","slug":"civil-war-letters-of-walter-and-george-battle-9","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.cw-chronicles.com\/blog\/civil-war-letters-of-walter-and-george-battle-9\/","title":{"rendered":"I should regret to see George leave us…"},"content":{"rendered":"

CAMP PICKINS, MANASSAS, VA., NOV. 2, 1861.<\/p>\n

Dear Sir:<\/i><\/p>\n

Yours of the 29th ult. was received to-day, contents duly noted, and I hasten to reply. I must confess to a feeling of surprise that you desire the discharge of your son, Mr. G. B. Lee<\/del> Battle1, 2, 3, 4, 5<\/sup>, from service, as I was of the opinion that you had fully and determinedly given your consent to his serving in the army of the C. S. during the war. Yet, however much I should regret to see George leave us, as he has been with us so long and has been, though young, a strong, athletic and good soldier, you have my free consent to have him discharged. You will be the proper person to apply to the Government through the War Dept., for the same, where I doubt not, should you still desire him to leave, you can, by presenting the facts, after a while obtain his discharge. It is not in my power to do more than give my consent, which you now have. George expressed some surprise on receiving your letter, and says he don’t want to leave. I, of course, do not deem it proper to give him any advice, but simply told him to write you whatever he might think proper, as of course you were the person to advise him, when you could. He has just handed me a letter to enclose to you with this. Whatever course you may pursue I shall willingly acquiesce in. If he is still left in my charge, I shall, as heretofore, advise and correct him and use every effort in my power to secure his happiness and welfare. Hoping to hear from you again and that my answer may be satisfactory, I remain,<\/p>\n

Yours most respectfully,
\nJ. S. BARNES<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n

Letters from two brothers who served in the 4th North Carolina Infantry during the Civil War are available in a number of sources online.\u00a0 Unfortunately, the brothers are misidentified in some places as Walter Lee<\/strong> and George<\/strong> Lee<\/strong> when their names were actually Walter<\/strong> Battle<\/strong> and George Battle<\/strong>. See The Battle Brothers<\/a> for more information on the misidentification.<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Apparently, the only remaining record of the brothers’ letters is in Forget-Me-Nots of the Civil War<\/em>, a 1909 \u201cautobiography\u201d by Laura Elizabeth Lee<\/strong> Battle. In the book, she identifies the two young men as her \u201ctwo half brothers,\u201d Walter Lee<\/strong> and George<\/strong> Lee <\/strong>when they were actually the brothers of her husband,\u00a0 Jesse Mercer Battle<\/strong>, who had both died years before the couple was married.<\/li>\n
  2. It appears that the letters from Laura Battle’s book were republished in 2004 in As You May Never See Us Again: The Civil War Letters of George and Walter Battle, 4th North Carolina Infantry; Coming of Age on the Front Lines of the War Between the States, 1861-1865, <\/i>Sharlene Baker, editor. Battle’s book\u2014and the letters\u2014had long been in the public domain, so there were no copyright restraints on the use of the material.<\/li>\n
  3. In Battle’s book, the greeting in Captain Jesse Sharpe Barnes’s letter includes the name “Mr. Chas. W. Lee,” Laura Battle’s father.\u00a0 Baker’s 2004 book, however, omits this.\u00a0 Both books identify the subject of the letter in the body as Mr. G. B. Lee.<\/li>\n
  4. In Roster of North Carolina Troops in the War Between the States, Volume 1<\/em><\/a>. <\/i>(1882),<\/i> most of the men in the listing for Company F, 4th North Carolina Infantry are from Wilson County.\u00a0 The list includes Captain Jesse S. Sharpe, Private George B. Battle and Private Walter R. Battle.\u00a0 There are no men with the surname Lee in Company F.\u00a0 Barnes was commissioned on May 16, 1861.\u00a0 The Battle brothers enlisted June 28th.
    \n<\/i><\/li>\n
  5. Sadly, George Boardman Battle was wounded at the Battle of Seven Pines at age 17.\u00a0 He died from his wounds in a Richmond hospital on June 6, 1862, without ever regaining consciousness. The battle also took the life of Captain Sharpe.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    CAMP PICKINS, MANASSAS, VA., NOV. 2, 1861. Dear Sir: Yours of the 29th ult. was received to-day, contents duly noted, and I hasten to reply. I must confess to a feeling of surprise that you desire the discharge of your son, Mr. G. B. Lee Battle1, 2, 3, 4, 5, from service, as I was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":21,"featured_media":101146,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[146],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-101127","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-civil-war-letters-of-walter-and-george-battle"},"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/www.cw-chronicles.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/Jesse-Sharp-Barnes.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.cw-chronicles.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101127","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.cw-chronicles.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.cw-chronicles.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.cw-chronicles.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/21"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.cw-chronicles.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=101127"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.cw-chronicles.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101127\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.cw-chronicles.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/101146"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.cw-chronicles.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=101127"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.cw-chronicles.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=101127"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.cw-chronicles.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=101127"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}