John M. Turner Letter, 1864

Uohth Сало-ы.па State. Asichtvet Ratetgh, Nosith CaaoLLna 1941 Collection: JOHN K. TURNER, LETTER 1864 •• Cleveland County (N.C.) Physical Description: One original manuscript letter written on a folded sheet (with typed transcription of the text accompanying it) Acquisition: Gift, Velner S. Jones, Sanford;, N.C. 2002 Description: The brothers John M>, Arthur N., and William H. Turner were sons of Nelson Turner (1808-1877), a small farmer residing in southern Cleveland County, N.C. Arthur married a woman from Spartanburg County, S.C., in the late 1850s and began farming there. His two brothers , John M'. (1832-1864) and William H. , were farming together on a small 34-acre farm that John had purchased about the time of his marriage to a local widow. Upon commencement of the Civil War the two brothers John and William enlisted on the same day, September 17, 1861, in Company F, 34th Regiment, North Carolina Troops. Arthur N. Turner appears not to have entered the army. At some point William H. Turner appears to have been principally involved in the death of a slave in Spartanburg County, S.C., but whether prior to or during the war is uncertain. He was wounded in battle at the beginning of May 1863, then captured in August 1863. Almost immediately upon his having been exchanged in March 1864, he was placed under arrest, then sent back to duty in the late spring, and rearrested in the early summer of 1864. The Richmond Whig of August 30, 1864, states that William H. Turner was "to be sent back to North Carolina to answer before a civil tri¬ bunal for murdering a Negro." He was alive and free in Cleveland County, N.C., in the 1870s and 1880s, so it appears that, if tried, he was not convicted of the capital offense of murder. This letter, dated September 18, 1864, while William H. Turner was incarcerated, was written by John M. Turner from the trenches at Petersburg, Virginia, to their father, Nelson Turner, in Cleveland County, N.C. It touches on the subject of the charges against, and the arrest of, William. The letter suggests that the killing was in self-defense and in protection of Arthur's wife, Hortensia. No details are given, and there is no other letter on the subject. John M. Turner was shot by a sniper at Petersburg and died of the wound on September 19, 1864.