Autograph letter signed : Columbus, Miss., to Rev. John H. Hopkins, 1863 Nov. 19.

Saying, "I know you too well to believe for a moment that the harsh clangor of war has deafened your ear to the call of charity"; telling him about a friend's son who is in the insane asylum at Brattleborough, and noting that his friend is not able to contact his son because of the war; asking him to inquire at the asylum about whether the son is living or dead; emphasizing that his friend is wealthy and happy to pay for his son's expenses; adding that his "late pleasant home at Jackson is now a blackened, crumbling ruin," and lamenting the loss of his library and "mementoes of absent and departed ones"; wishing that his "Northern Brethren" could see how things are in the South; giving prices for how much various staples cost now; asserting that even though times are hard in the South, "this war of extermination will have to assume much larger proportions before we become an enslaved people. To Puritan masters no power of earth can ever subject us"; speaking at length about how much Southerners despise Yankees; apologizing if he has written anything that offends Hopkins.