During 1864, Augusta received three letters from her brother Ralph Goodrich mailed
from Little Rock, Arkansas. These letters describe Ralph's efforts to earn a
living first as a teacher in Little Rock's Boy's School and later as a grocer during the Civil War. Ralph had
initially entered the war as a private in the confederacy, joining Company A
(a.k.a., the "Capitol Guards") of the 6th Arkansas Volunteer Infantry.
He joined at Little Rock on September 1, 1861 and was discharged on March 24,
1862 -- a couple of weeks before the Battle of Shiloh in which several members
of the Capitol Guards were killed or wounded. These
letters were written after Little Rock had been captured by Union forces and
while a provisional (Union) government had been re-established. They contain
several references to his brother, James (Jim) Goodrich, who was serving with the 5th Kansas Cavalry
Volunteers in Arkansas at the time.
Engraving of Little Rock, Arkansas during the Civil War
from Harper's Pictorial History of the Civil War
Eight months prior to the first of
these letters, the following incident was recorded in the Arkansas News.:
Student’s Father
Beats Little Rock Headmaster
Ralph Goodrich, headmaster at
the Little Rock Boys’ School reported to the Arkansas News this morning,
May 15, 1863, that he was roughed up by the father of a student outside the
school building. It appears that Goodrich had admonished the lad for
disobeying, at which point the student began to swear at Goodrich.
As swearing is unquestionably against the school rules, Goodrich preceded to
gather up his riding crop and strike the misdirected boy. He then ordered
him out of the building.
Quite soon afterwards, Goodrich says that the boy’s father arrived, and
insisted that they go behind the building. The father, a not so gentlemanly
man by the name of Rector, commenced to hitting Goodrich with his fists on
the side of Goodrich’s face.
From Goodrich’s accounts Rector called him several insulting names, not
the least being a “miserable yankee dog.” For those citizens of Little
Rock who might not be familiar with Mr. Goodrich’s background, the
gentleman is from the state of New York.
The man identified only as Rector
in this article was none other than Henry
Massie Rector, the former Governor of Arkansas, who had resigned his office
in 1862 and was generally not well-respected by much of the Little Rock
population by this point in the war. According to the web link above, Henry M.
Rector "was 'a violent man who fights people.' Not only did his two years
in office reflect this, but he also pistol-whipped his sons’ schoolteacher
because the man had disciplined one of his children. Calling the man [Ralph
Goodrich] a “damned stinking Yankee,” he added, “You strike my son like I
would a negro, you god damned miserable Yankee dog.” In retrospect, some would
say his greatest moment came in defying Lincoln’s call for troops. But in
unifying a largely frontier state for the first modern war, he proved to be
seriously lacking."
The cursing schoolboy was probably
Henry Rector's youngest son, Elias William Rector, who was born on 11 June 1849
-- making him almost 14 years old at the time of the incident.
Henry Massie Rector, Arkansas'
6th Governor (1860-1862)
Little
Rock [Arkansas]
January 25, 1864
My dear sister
[Augusta],
I received
your letter some time ago. I thought I had answered it, but gradually I was
convinced of my error. I write now but I have nothing to say worth saying,
except my own trouble. I have not heard from home for several weeks. [Our
brother] Jim never writes to me. Jake Orcutt came up from Pine Bluff some time
in the first of December. Since then I have not heard from him. Col. [Powell]
Clayton has had a fight lately with the confederates several miles south of Pine
Bluff, but I don’t think [our brother] Jim was along, as his company has been
detached from the Regiment and put into an Artillery Company – heavy artillery
I believe. I have written several times to him and sent them by soldiers who
were going down, as there is not as yet a regular mail. The last time I heard,
when [Jake] Orcutt was up, he was then well and in good spirits. Jim is the cook
of the mess and consequently is not obliged to go out on scouting or foraging
parties. Quite a number of the soldiers in the place have gone into the Veteran
Corps to serve during the war. From the last letter from home, I hear that there
is to be another draft in New York State. I should think that [our brother]
Steve would be exempted, situated as he is.
I am still
going on with my school. The number of my scholars is small and barely
sufficient to defray my expenses. I did intend to go home in the summer, but
with the pay I am getting, I never will be able to go home much less to leave
this place. I have been so many times disappointed in trying to get into some
business which would pay better than my present one, that I have been unwell all
the time for the past two months. I am pestered almost to death by a poor
miserable, shiftless, and shameless family in my school. They don’t give me a
moment’s peace or rest & I can’t get them out. They are a perfect
nuisance and a disgrace to any place. One thing and then another has kept me mad
and sick all the time. I know that it is wrong to give way but it would take a
more confirmed Christian than I am to bear all with stoical indifference. I have
wished again and again that I could leave the place. I would if I were able with
no regret or sorrow, as long as I have lived here. I am ready to leave at any
time when I can get away conveniently.
Yesterday the
family in my house raised a disgraceful disturbance and by some means or other
they lugged me into it. I had taken the part of a Negro woman who was their
servant. The family had hired her to do their work, but she was to pay four
dollars a month for rent in advance. Who ever heard of such an arrangement that
a servant should do all the work and pay $4.00 besides? After the Negro woman
had been in the house a few days, the white woman – who by the way is an
incarnate she-devil – turns the servant out of doors and will not refund the
four dollars. I take the part of the poor Negro woman and thereby get into a
fuss on Sunday rather than get into a regular fight. I submitted to be called a
liar, a villain, a tyrant, etc. It is an awful thing to be associated with a
class of people in this country, who are white but have no more humanity than a
dog and who in morals are worse than the lowest. It is bad enough to be on the
same street with them but outrageous when in the same building. I have here a
lying, thieving, begging band and I cannot get them out. I was not annoyed in
Confederate times by the terrors of conscription as I have been by this trash.
“Old buzzards” as one of my servants says. “One of my servants” sounds
big but I believe I have explained in my first letter how I have two. I can live
considerably cheaper than if I was boarding in a family. In fact, if I was not
living as I do now, I could not pay my board and rent. I sincerely hope the
times will become better for me, but at present the future prospect of good
seems to be wholly obliterated by the present prospect of utter poverty. I just
pay expenses and by considerable squeezing one month in the fall when cost was
not so high, I saved me enough to buy me a shirt – a brown one. Since then I
have purchased nothing. I wish I was in Cuba or South America. Possibly I might
have some reasonable hopes of doing better than I am at present.
Well this
letter is all about me. Tell [your husband] James that my ideas of the Negro are
somewhat changed [and] that they are a hundred percent better in every respect
than the poor miserable, one-ideas, tyrannical white dogs, [who are] the natives
of this state. I am teaching nine [Negroes] and one of them can read the Bible
pretty well. She is improving tolerably well. With love to all, I remain as ever
your affectionate brother, -- Ralph L. Goodrich
Little
Rock [Arkansas]
April 9, 1864
My dear Sister
[Augusta] & Brother [James],
I received
your letter a few days ago, but I have had no opportunity to answer it until
today. One day this week [our brother] James came up on a boat from Pine Bluff.
Part of his company was detailed to come up as a guard to some three hundred
Confederate prisoners. He got here in the afternoon & hunted me up and
stayed with me the afternoon when he returned to the boat as they care to leave
early in the morning. He is well & getting along well. He is no longer the
cook of the mess. He says that they think they will be sent to Kansas soon &
be mustered out of service there. He has no intention of going in again. He says
the reason that he has not written home or to you since he has been at Pine
Bluff is that he has had no time. But letters will reach him if you direct to
him at Pine Bluff, Arkansas, 5th Regt. Kansas Vols.
I have
received a letter today from Mr. Babcock. He wants me to come to New Orleans
& try to get a Commission in the Corps
d’Afrique. He says the medical examinations are nothing. But it will cost
a good deal to go there & then if I am successful, it will be impossible to
say whether I can see home again. And I can’t begin to think of going then
even with the agreeable prospect of a commission before me, for I am getting
very homesick, and would rather go nearer home than farther off. I got another
letter from home today. Ma has been sick but was better when the letter was
written, which was about one month ago – a long time for letters to come here.
I wish there were better mail arrangements.
I was going to
say my prospects were getting better, but I think not considering everything. A
little more than a month ago, a German came to town from Pine Bluff. I knew him
when out in the army (by the way, he is a capital fellow) & wanted to come
& board with me. I took him. He pays me twenty-five dollars a month. After
he had been here a few weeks he brought his partner in business. They give me
fifty dollars a month. Thus far it is good. I am satisfied & I could make a
little without much trouble. But a few days ago, a young fellow in Q[uarter]
M[aster] Department wanted me to take a mess of Express Riders. He said they
were all good boys, &c &c. I consented to that. They were to furnish
rations & wood & pay thirty dollars per month. There would be five in
the mess. They have been here over a week & I have got heartily tired of the
business. It makes my expenses less, but I am getting to look with indifference
upon inconveniences when I can make some money.
The servants I
have, rather light mulattoes, a mother, daughter, and granddaughter, aged
respectively about 50, 23, & 8, are old family servants of Mrs. Adamson, the
lady with whom I lived before she died. They are respectable sort of darkies
& have taken good care of me when I have been sick, both here & at the
old place. And if it had not been for them, I should not be alive now, I
believe. What is more, they have taken such a liking to me that they wish to be
my servants always. They want me to be their master, not slave master, and if I
go north, they want to go too. Live as I do here, it would be a saving business
for me. What do you think of it? I am teaching the old woman to read & she
can get over the Bible tolerably well. Next time you write, tell me your
opinion. Whenever I can get a situation from Mr. Wheeler Bristol for certain, I
shall have money enough to go north on. If my boarders remain with me any time
& I shall not be compelled to ask assistance from any one. Jim said he would
lend me money, but I told him I did not want to borrow for I thought when I did
go, I would be able to raise the money. Write soon and believe me as ever your
affectionate brother – Ralph L. Goodrich
Little
Rock [Arkansas]
August 7, 1864
My dear Sister
[Augusta],
I had waited
so long before receiving an answer to my letter that I had almost begun to
believe that you were acting toward me as many others have done since the
Federal Army brought me to light by taking possession of this town. But I
console myself this way, that the fewer the people who write to me the less
number of letters I have to answer. And now when I am busy from daylight till
dark, and from dark till ten o’clock at night, I find but very little time to
give to letters. With all these obstacles, I have managed to answer all without
putting them off so unconscionably long. Why Jim, in the few letters that passed
between us while he was at Pine Bluff, was more punctual than a good many.
I am in
business at last & doing better than I ever did at school teaching. I am in
partnership with a German from Illinois. He is the brother-in-law of one who has
been my friend ever since I came to Little Rock. We have a sort of a grocery
store & sell almost anything. Because I have changed my line of business, I
have not so much leisure as I had when teaching school. But we have a great deal
of trouble from drunken [Union] soldiers. They have no respect for themselves or for
others. I don’t expect to see better soldiers than some of these are, but God
forbid that I should ever have to deal with any worse than others of them are.
Some of them would sooner get into a disgraceful street fight than eat their
dinner or go to church. I believe that a good many of them never saw the inside
of a church or a meetinghouse. Good men or bad ones too are always mixed up in a
large army. The good make the bad seem better & the bad make the good seem
worse.
Since I left
my school, I have been tolerably well, but the summer has been so hot. I have
taken so much more exercise than usual that at present I am almost completely
covered over with one blister. The heat broke out on me at first like the
measles & then blotches have come out so thick that I am red all over &
pretty sore besides. So you can imagine how much comfort I take when besides
this, I have a family in my house who are a constant annoyance to me.
Jim stopped
here a few days when on his way back to Kansas. He thought that probably he
might come back here to get some kind of business unless he could do better
there in Kansas. He was well when he left. Some of [his] Company had to remain
& some of the boys told me that Jim cried when he left them. I think Jim
likes a soldier’s life pretty well – better than I do at any rate. I have
seen enough to know what it is & I do not want to try it again. I received a
letter from home some time ago. They are all well. Col. [Benjamin Franklin]
Tracy has resigned [from the 109th New York Infantry] because he was sick, but
they say he looks well &c. So it goes. Write soon & believe me as ever
your affectionate brother, -- Ralph L. Goodrich
Ralph
L. Goodrich
