Letter from Martha Coletrane to Governor Zebulon B. Vance
Nov the 18 1862
stae of Northcarolina Randolph Co
Dear sir this is a greate undertaking for me as i never wrote to a man of authority before necesity requires it of me as we are nonslave holders in this section of the State i hope you and our legislature will look to it and have justice done our people as well as the slaveholders i can tel you the condition of my family and you can judg for your self what its condition woul be if my husban is called from home we hav eight children and the oldest is not forteen years old and an old aged mother to support, which makes eleven in our family and without my husband we are a desolate and ruined family for extortion runs so hie here we cannot support and clothe our family without the help of my husband i hope you will look to the justice of the peepils of this section of the state and i trust you will hold the rane in your own hands and not let the confederate congress have the full sway over your State i appeal to you to look to the white cultivators as strictly as congress has to the slaveholders and i think they men from 35 to 45 be hel as reserves at hom to support their families if the are calld from home it is bound to leave a thoasn families in a starving condition in our county we trust in god and look to you for some help for our poor children . . .
[Martha Coletrane]
Letter from Daniel Locklar, Free Man of Color, to Governor Zebulon B. Vance
(The letter writer possibly was a Lumbee Indian and not an African American.)
Laurinburg Richmond Co N.C.
July 28th 1863
His Excellency the Governor
Sir—if your highness will condesend to reply to my feble Note, you will confer a great favor on me, and relieve me of my troubles. My Case is this I am a free man of Color, and has a large family to support, there is a man living near me, who is an Agent of the State Salt workes appointed by Worth, or is said to be, he took all we Colored men last winter to make Salt. he is now after us to make Barrels for the State Salt works. Comes at the dead hours of night and carries us off wherever he thinks proper, gives us one dollar and fifty Cents pr day and we find ourselves. I cannot support my family at that rate and pay the present high prices for provisions, I can support my family very well if I were left at home to work for my neighbors they pay me or sell me provisions at the old price for my labor, this agent says he has the power by law to carry us wherever he pleases and when he pleases, if that be the law and he is ortherized by law to use that power, I am willing to submit to his Calls, for I am perfectly willing to do for our Country whatever the laws requires of me, but if there be no such law and this Agent taking this power within himself perhaps speculating on the labor of the free Colored men and our families suffering for bread, I am not willing to submit to such, please let me know if this Agent has the power to use us as he does
Daniel Locklar
Newspaper Account of a Bread Riot in Salisbury
Salisbury, N.C. March 18th [1863]
. . . Salisbury has witnessed to-day one of the gayest and liveliest scenes of the age. About 12 o'clock, a rumor was afloat, that the wives of several soldiers now in the war, intended to make a dash on some flour and other necessities of life, belonging to certain gentlemen, who the ladies termed "speculators." They alleged that they were entirely out of provisions, and unable to give the enormous prices now asked, but were willing to give Government prices. Accordingly, about 2 O'clock they met, some 50 or 75 in number, with axes and hatchets, and proceeded to the depot of the North Carolina Central Road, to impress some there, but were very politely met by the agent, Mr. ---: "What on earth is the matter?" The excited women said they were in search of "flour" which they had learned had been stored there by a certain speculator. . . .
Finally . . . they returned to the depot . . . and again demanded the agent that they be allowed to go in. He still refused, but finally agreed to let two go in and examine the flour, and see if his statement was not correct. A restlessness pervaded the whole body, and but a few moments elapsed before a female voice was heard saying: "Let's go in." The agent remarked:-"Ladies . . . it is useless to attempt it, unless you go in over my dead body." A rush was made, and they went in, and the last I saw of the agent, he was sitting on a log blowing like a March wind. They took ten barrels, and rolled them out and were setting on them, when I left, waiting for a wagon to haul them away. . . .
—Salisbury Daily Carolina Watchman, 23 March, 1863
Letter from Nancy Mangum to Governor Zebulon B. Vance
Mcleanesville NC Aprile 9th 1863
Gov Vance
I have threatend for some time to write you a letter-a crowd of we Poor wemen went to Greenesborough yesterday for something to eat as we had not a mouthful meet nor bread in my house what did they do but put us in gail Jim Slone, Linsey Hilleshemer and several others I will not mention-thes are the ones that put us to gail in plase of giveing us aney thing to eat and I had to com hom without aneything-I have 6 little children and my husband in the armey and what am I to do. . . . if you dont take thes yankys a way from greenesborough we wemen will write for our husbans to come . . . home and help us. . . .
Yours very
Respectfuly
Nancy Mangum