| Summary: | This document is a letter from Phil F. Mitchell to his sister Mary Louisa Mitchell Williamson, written from camp near Norfolk, Va., on July 13, 1861. The letter describes his recent illness and the illnesses of fellow soldiers that she knows. He also alludes to her possible engagement to Dr. Williamson (her future husband) and gives her his blessing, while discussing his own romantic difficulties. The Fitzpatrick family emigrated from Ireland to the Virginia colony in the early 1700s. Over time, the family moved from Virginia through the Carolinas and into Georgia before finally settling in Line Creek, Alabama and Verbena, Alabama. Several members of the family were active politically including William Fitzpatrick, who served in the Georgia legislature, and Benjamin Fitzpatrick, who served two terms as governor of Alabama. Sarah Fitzpatrick, a descendant of this family, married Columbus White Mitchell who was from a prominent Alabama family. The couple had ten children, seven of whom survived infancy. Three of their sons served in the Civil War on the side of the Confederacy (Phil F. Mitchell, Joseph A. Mitchell, and Columbus White Mitchell). Their daughter Mary Louisa, a central figure of this collection, married Dr. Samuel "Trinley" Thomas Williamson in September 1861 shortly after the war began. Williamson was a medical doctor who also fought in the Confederate armed forces. With Williamson and the three Mitchell brothers away fighting, Mary Louisa was left home to run the household with only the help of her sick mother and her sisters. At this time she was also pregnant with her first child who was born in 1862. All three brothers and Williamson survived the war. The family continued to live in Alabama following the Civil War. Since the mid-1900s, some branches of the family have spread out while some continue to live in Alabama. This item has been aggregated as part of the Association of Southeastern Research Libraries (ASERL)'s "Deeply Rooted: The Agricultural & Rural History of the American South" project.
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