Letter from Bernard Hooe to Susan L. Hardin

Scope and content:

Written from Elizabeth, New Jersey. Letter regards Mark B. Hardin's pending release from prison and Lauriston B. Hardin's estate.

Language:

English .

Other descriptive data:

Elizabeth - New Jersey
June 29th 1865

My dear Susan,
I hasten to acknowledge the receipt of your letter, addressed to Dr. Wm. P. Johnston of Washington, D.C. dated on the 14th inst., forwarded to me from the latter place, and received by mail of yesterday.

You will perceive by the enclosed letter, that I had written to you some time previous to the receipt of your acceptable favor, and it's transmission has been unavoidably delayed by the absence of mail facilities of which distant friends in the South have been hitherto deprived.

Having in that former letter given you a somewhat detailed account of our own family in which no changes have since occurred, it will not now be necessary that I should repeat anything then mentioned.

Dr. Johnston has informed me by his letter of yesterday that he has answered your enquiries as far as he could, and expresses the hope that your dear brother M.B.H. may arrive here as soon as your letter enclosed to me by him should reach me at this place. Such, however, is not the case, but we are in the constant expectation of having the extreme happiness of greeting his return to his family and friends after his absence of four long & anxious years.

More than two weeks have elapsed since Dr. Johnston obtained from the President an order for our dear boy's release, which, as I presume he has advised you, was by him handed to the proper officer (General Hoffman, the Commissary General of Prisoners) to be by him forwarded to the commanding officer at Johnson's Island, and it was therefore naturally and reasonably expected that he would have been immediately discharged. The delay to do so has been occasioned by some official oversight or inadvertence which a subordinate in the Commissary's Bureau has assured Dr. J. should be immediately remedied by a telegraphic dispatch from that office. You will therefore perceive the ground on which our hope and expectation of his early restoration to us are based, and we most earnestly and anxiously hope we shall be no longer doomed to disappointment.

I am not, my dear child, surprised to hear of the deplorable condition in which you have been left by the late cruel war, by which the whole Southern country has been devastated; and my most anxious desire, in which I am seconded by all the friends of your beloved father and his children, has been, and is to do all in our power for your relief, and as speedily as may be practicable, but there is reason to fear that some time will expire before the desired object can be consummated. Some two creditors of your father, being uneasy in regard to their respective claims against his estate, and being the more apprehensive of tedious delay necessarily resulting from the war, determined to institute legal proceedings for the recovery of their claims; no private arrangement could be made by any of us here, because you and your younger brother were, what is termed in the law infants, whose interests were to be guarded by the court, to which it's supervision properly belongs.

A Decree was obtained in the court at Washington for the sale of the Real Estate in that City, and from the proceeds thereof the only remaining debts due from the estate have been discharged, and a balance is left amounting to some six thousand five or six hundred dollars, which has been vested, under the direction of the Court, in United States 7/30 bonds, bearing interest, & subject to the future order of the court.

In addition to that amount, the proceeds to be derived from the sale of the farm in the country, expects to produce some $5000 or $6000, will be held subject to such disposition as the Courts may direct; we hope therefore that a sum not less that $12,000 may be realized and held subject to the future orders of the Courts in which the proceedings have been instituted, and without the knowledge or consent of myself or any of your friends in Washington or elsewhere.

We will resort to any legal and proper one and to protect the funds from confiscation or other action of the Government.

When your brother shall arrive here, he will be informed of the circumstances herein detailed, and which have not been yet communicated to him, and after taking such steps as may be deemed proper for the protection of the interest of all the children, as far as that can be effected, you shall be more particularly informed by him and by myself.

This statement is now made in justice to you all and should have been earlier communicated if I had known your address.

Your Aunt Ellen and all her family unite with me in the assurance of constant and undiminished interest in, and affection for your little brother John and yourself, and in their high regard for you dear Grandmother Lane, to whom we desire to be presented in terms of kind remembrance.

Uncertain whether there is a direct communication open to Fayetteville, this will be sent from New York via Wilmington, where your letter to Dr. J. was mailed.
You anxious and affectionate Grandfather
B. Hooe

I will be very happy to hear from you, according to the date of this letter. Excuse any interlineations and omissions and make every proper allowance for the nervous writing of your Septuagenarian Grandfather, who does not now find writing as easy as he did five or six year ago. When you write tell Johnny to add a Post Script.

Subjects:

United States—History—Civil War, 1861-1865—Home life
United States—History—Civil War, 1861-1865—Prisoners and prisons
Correspondence

Names:

Hardin, Mark B. (Mark Bernard), 1838-1916
Hardin, Mark B. (Mark Bernard), 1838-1916

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