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Title: Letter from Benjamin S. Hedrick to his wife Mary Ellen Hedrick, October, 22 1856: Electronic Edition.
Author: Hedrick, Benjamin Sherwood, 1827-1886
Funding from the University Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill supported the electronic publication of this title.
Text transcribed by Bari Helms
Images scanned by Bari Helms
Text encoded by Brian Dietz
First Edition, 2005
Size of electronic edition: ca. 10K
Publisher: The University Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Chapel Hill, North Carolina
2005

No Copyright in US

The electronic edition is a part of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill digital library, Documenting the American South.
Languages used in the text: English
Revision history:
2005-10-25, Brian Dietz finished TEI/XML encoding.
Source(s):
Title of collection: Benjamin Sherwood Hedrick Papers (#325), Southern Historical Collection, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Title of document: Letter from Benjamin S. Hedrick to his wife Mary Ellen Hedrick, October, 22 1856
Author: B. S. Hedrick
Description: 3 pages, 3 page images
Note: Call number 325 (Southern Historical Collection, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill)
Editorial practices
The text has been encoded using the recommendations for Level 5 of the TEI in Libraries Guidelines.
Originals are in the Southern Historical Collection, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Original grammar, punctuation, and spelling have been preserved.
Page images can be viewed and compared in parallel with the text.
Any hyphens occurring in line breaks have been removed, and the trailing part of a word has been joined to the preceding line.
All quotation marks, em dashes and ampersand have been transcribed as entity references.
All double right and left quotation marks are encoded as ".
All single right and left quotation marks are encoded as '.
All em dashes are encoded as —.
Indentation in lines has not been preserved.

For more information about transcription and other editorial decisions, see the section Editorial Practices.
Letter from Benjamin S. Hedrick to his wife Mary Ellen Hedrick, October, 22 1856
Hedrick, Benjamin Sherwood, 1827-1886



Page 1
Davidson County, N.C.
Oct. 22, 1856

My dear Wife,

It is now just dark, and I am at Adam's. I came to Lexington today on the freight train, and walked out here. Adam is going with me directly to take the cars at Lexington. I will go to Greensboro, where I expect to stop till tomorrow evening. They made a good deal of disturbance on my account in Salisbury last night, tho' they did no damage except to frighten pretty bad the women folks at Mr Rankin's. The outbreak was much worse than any that occurred at at Chapel Hill. Father was with me, and if they had made an assault upon me there would have been pretty tough times. After the attack I thought it would be useless for me to remain any longer, as it might excite the people still more. In fact I have come to the conclusion that it would be folly for me to make any further attempt at pacification. A good many people in Salisbury are very friendly towards me,

Page 2
but those who are against me are perfectly mad. They have not read my letter and will not read it. Mr. Rankin is very much affraid that the days of the Union are numbered, and it would be as were the same state of things existing all over the South which there is from Salisbury South. At Charlotte they have already begun to organise military companies to march against the North. Mr. Rankin told me that even the presbyterian preachers in South Carolina are mad for disunion. Mr R. has strong notions of leaving Salisbury and retiring to some seclusive mountain district, where he would be somewhat secure against the ravages of civil war whenever it shall come. I do not think however the danger is as great as it is supposed. Mr. Tawbs from the Eastern part of the state had not even heard of my letter while at home, and I think it more than probably that nine tenths of the people know nothing of it, or the threatened dissolution of the union. If there were some harmless means of making the disunionists come out and

Page 3
show themselves they would be scared at their own in-significance. The danger is that by continued clamor they will present a state of things which will lead to final alienation of the different sections of the Union.
I expect to leave Greensboro in the cars to-morrow night

Good bye, may
God bless you my love,

B. S. Hedrick