1863 Adversity Cover From My Hometown, Hendersonville NC

This is a recent purchase and is now one of my favorite covers in my collection. I live in the beautiful mountains of Western North Carolina (WNC) in small town called Hendersonville in Henderson County.

By 1863, Henderson County was struggling; it was a rural county and residents were subsistence farmers. With nearly 85 percent of white males in the county from the ages of 17 to 50 fighting for the Confederacy (about 1,700 men); women, the elderly and children were left to raise the crops. About 158 men from Henderson County joined the Union military.

While there were not any major Civil War battles in the county, it was significant amounts of starvation and related diseases. Even worse, there was widespread violence spread by deserters from both the Union and Confederate armies. The remote WNC mountains made for a good hideout for these "bushwhackers" from both sides. They robbed, raped and killed many local people during this period. Within a week of the cover above being sent, a local mother of three was beaten, raped, and killed.

My cover (above) is called a 'Adversity cover'. Adversity covers are so named because they were created out of necessity. The Union blockade of the South made it difficult to import goods from other countries, including paper. This led to a shortage of paper in the South, which made it difficult to write letters and mail them. In order to overcome this shortage, people in the South began to use whatever materials they could find to create letters and envelopes. This included using the backs of ledger sheets, printed circulars, blank pages in books, maps, and even wallpaper.

The 1863 cover above is made from wallpaper. Unfortunately, the cover contents are not with the cover but it is marked Paid 10 with a Hendersonville April 21, postmark. I am still researching the sender (there was a Lucy Horton in the county in 1863) but the addressee is very well known.

Arthur Dugan was a lawyer in South Carolina during the Civil War. He was born in 1832 in Pendleton, South Carolina. Dugan was a strong supporter of the Confederacy. He served as a member of the South Carolina House of Representatives during the Civil War. He was also a member of the Confederate Congress. Dugan was a vocal advocate for the Confederacy and he worked tirelessly to support the war effort. After the Civil War, Dugan served as a judge on the South Carolina Supreme Court.

Dugan was a complex and controversial figure. He was a strong supporter of the Confederacy, but he was also a man of principle. He believed in the right of states to secede from the Union, but he also believed in the rule of law. He was a person who fought for what he believed in, but he was also a man who was willing to compromise.

Dugan is a reminder that the Civil War was a complex and divisive conflict. Dugan was just one of many people who were caught up in the war, and he is a reminder of the human cost of conflict.
Don

Given the right location, and archives,
sometimes the wallpaper would be able to be identified.....

New England
https://www.historicnewengland.org/...s/wallpaper/

Don,

I'm not sure that's a sender. Could it be "Red" (redirected?) from Lucy H...d, 23 April 1863, at Camp Echo? Camp Echo was a military camp just outside Charleston, SC.

New Road Station on the Charleston & Savannah RR was between present-day Rantowles, SC, and Ravenel, SC, which would put it within a couple miles of Camp Echo.

What would the PAID amount be ? Is that a 10 or?

Postmaster,
Interesting, thank you. I was reading it not as 'Red' but rather 'Recd' and have not completed my discovery on the New Road Station and C&S RR. Yesterday I downloaded this 1862 map which shows New Road Station

https://www.loc.gov/

Rodney,
Yes, I believe that 10 cents was paid.
Don

On second thought, it probably is Recd.

Upon further discovery, I believe that it reads;
Recd from Lucy
Huard, April 23rd 63
Camp Echo

Lucy Huard was a South Carolina-born abolitionist and women's rights activist. She was born in 1835 in Charleston, South Carolina, to a wealthy family. Her father was a slave owner, but Lucy was opposed to slavery from a young age. She attended Oberlin College in Ohio, where she became involved in the abolitionist movement. After graduating from Oberlin, Lucy moved to Boston, where she worked as a teacher and a writer. She also became involved in the women's suffrage movement.

In 1863, Lucy Huard moved to South Carolina to work with freed slaves. She helped to establish schools and churches for freed slaves, and she also worked to improve their living conditions. Lucy Huard was a tireless advocate for the rights of African Americans and women. She died in 1915 at the age of 80.

She was also;
- one of the first white women to teach in schools for freed slaves in South Carolina
- helped to establish the South Carolina Women's Suffrage Association in 1890
- was a founding member of the National Association of Colored Women in 1896
- She was awarded the Spingarn Medal by the NAACP in 1913 for her work on behalf of African Americans

I am unable to find much info on Camp Echo, if anyone has any references please let me know.
Thanks
Don

What a wonderful woman,
The great mystery in life, where some can see the truth, and others not so.

Just one mention, and I am not aware if it is the "Camp Echo " you seek
https://archives.lib.duke.edu/catal...ljohnberkley

My first thought was the date line read:

"Thursd{ay}, April 23d. 63."

which is the correct day of the week.

Mike (mml1942) may be right although I have never seen the abbreviation 'Thursd'. Has anyone else ever seen this? Putting the date on a single line makes sense, especially since there was room to put Lucy's last name on the top line.

Huard was/is a common name in town here in Henderson County but I can only find records of them going back to 1868. And there are two areas and a Lake in Hendersonville named Echo. Camps here are VERY common, I know of several dozen. The camps and summer homes here are where people came to summer to escape the malaria in the Charleston and other coastal low lands.

Out local Heritage museum and historical records is not open on Mondays and Tuesdays, but I am going to try to get there later this week.
Don

At first, I thought it had to be an "H",
but now I can see "Thursd" the writer's hand, shows a lower case "h" style,
both in Thurs and Echo.

"Thurs" would be common to me, Thursd, not so.

Sorry Don , but I would also question "Arthur Dugan" The "D" in Dugan, looks dodgy ? perhaps an "H" ?

No worries, as I mentioned this is all new discovery being done in real-time. Doing this 'in public' and as 'crowd sourcing' offers advantages on several levels; all input welcome and appreciated.
Don

Most likely answer is that the letter was sent from Hendersonvile, NC, without a sender's name on it. It was addressed to New Road Station, but was received by a "Lucy" at nearby Camp Echo. Camp Echo and New Road Station were only a couple miles apart, and Camp Echo was apparently a quarters area for Confederate troops from nearby stations.

Simmons Bluff is about 5 miles SSW from New Road Station.

Thanks for sharing this piece of history! I'm currently on the road with a small phone, but planning on following this topic for when I get home to a big screen! Don , may have said this, where did you get the cover? Tks. Wm

Hi William,
Purchased from ebay
Don

Thank you to everyone for your feedback and help. I agree that the sender is going to remain unknown unless some new information arises. I am also now less sure of the addressee.
I verified that the Hendersonville postmark is correct.


So, I have completed my album page write up without including speculation as shown here.


Thank you all once again!
Don