Sept. 3rd/63.
Dear Gov
I am happy to see the good effect the soldiers convention[1] have had on the people yet I am sorry to see so much desertion still going on and still more talk of I saw a letter from a man in A D Moores WLA[2] stating that some 15 or 20 from Davidson talk of Dserting all had repeaters & he had 2.
I know it is hard not to hear from our friends but would it not do to stop all lettes from & to home for a while not only stop them read and find out who is in the game of desertion. one deserter who said he was from Stanley Co. stop at an old mans and to told they were maken arrangments for killing the officers. he say the poor men had been fighting whil the rich had been at home making money that owing to high prices his family had suffered & some had sicken and died and he was going home to stay or die thare. thare was no one cared to stop /him/ for the cuntry here is full of deserters. if they stay thare will not be a sheep or any thing of the kind left long. I have lost 3 sheep one in the pasture in day time. I hope you will not depend on Col Grows doing any thing any longer but send some one that will. I think it would be best to take the military from this county and bring in strangers for they seem to be angery to think they military stay at home and they have to go. thare some understanding among the deserters that thare property is to be sold. they say they can raise 1,000 men in 5 days notic if it is time they could brought out in that way or some good groun to fight on. they have become so bold as to steal young girls and marrie. Seth Ward Gorden or Fine was married to a daughter of James Huse[3] last sunday. people say Henderson Fine[4] Esq married them.
Thare is one thing that should be look after soon that is the one if it comes out of the poor soldiers that have only thir wife or mother and children to labor the army will be brok some of the best soildier I know say they will come home if it is taken from them.
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I write in great hast
your obidently
Mary P. Moore[5]
Cedar Bush N.C. [in Davidson County]
Sept 3
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[1] The officers of several North Carolina regiments held a convention on August 12, 1863 at Orange Court House to denounce the peace movement meetings held in North Carolina, sponsored and supported by the North Carolina Standard, a newspaper edited by William Woods Holden. North Carolina Standard, August 18, 1863.
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[2] Alexander Duncan Moore (1839-1864), from Brunswick County, resigned as a cadet from the U.S. Military Academy, West Point, and was appointed 2nd lieutenant in the Artillery Corps, C.S. Army. He was appointed Captain of the Wilmington Light Artillery on May 16, 1861. He later became colonel of the 66th North Carolina Regiment and was killed at Cold Harbor, Virginia, on June 3, 1864. Manarin, comp., North Carolina Troops: A Roster, 1:89, 15:313; 1860 U.S. Census.
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[3] James Hughes (1819-1901) was a farmer in Davidson County. 1860 U.S. Census.
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[4] Henderson Fine (1831-1898) was a farmer in Davidson County. 1860 U.S. Census.
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[5] Mary P. Moore (b. ca. 1818) was a resident of Davidson County. She had at least one son, James, b. 1849. She is not in the 1860 census. 1870 U.S. Census; 1880 U.S. Census.