My dear Son

My dear Son

My dear Son,
I wrote you a short letter from Brownsboro shortly after the receipt of yours of 9th of October, and Ouline has since last time had another epistle of yours dated the 18th, which she has not answered yet, mostly on account of her right second finger has got stiff and benumbed after the long swelling in it, so she must now use her long finger for writing. Previous to receiving your last letter to me, I had written a letter to your Mary inclosed in a ditto to B. C. Flannagan, Esq., but has yet not got any acknowledgement of the receipt of those. I also inclosed to Mr. F. 5$ to subscribe on Richmond Examiner and Inquirer but have not yet seen any of those papers, so perhaps my letter may be lost.
As to my little family here, we are all in good health, and tolerably good spirits, and always busy with the many [illegible] small household duties, that scarcely can be described; but at a time where there is no help to be had for anything, there is plenty to do for those that stay at home. Just now today I have been employed from early in the morning to drive up a beefsteer, kill and butcher it, cut up and salt down the meat, besides the usual attention of 5 milk cows and feeding the horses as also the hogs put up for pork, and you better believe Ouline has had her hands full, as also Charley, who is my main dependant now. I told you in my last letter that we had moved into my dwelling in the Grove, and both I and Ouline feel so comfortable up here, that we have made up our mind to stay here, and not move any more, taking care of cattle, sheep and horses.

Christmas is approaching, and I have succeeded in laying in a plentiful supply for the winter of flour, cornmeal, corn, sweet potatoes and salt, and when I shall have killed 8 hogs that I am fattening, the want shall not knock at our doors for the meat season, unless the Yankees should come in and plunder us. I feel the more satisfied, since I just have had letters from Christian and John, who both were well and in good spirits when they wrote, only that I could make them partake in our Christmas cheer and good things, when they poor fellows are living very hard, especially John in Arkansas, where they don't get anything but cornmeal and blue beef, and not always enough of that.
We just hear about a battle they have had not far from Ft. Smith [Arkansas], where our troops after a three day's fight at last succeeded in whipping the Federals, and driving them 15 miles back. I have seen no official account of the battle, only hearsay from some letters arrived here from men in Bass' Regiment, which did not participate in the battle; tho' called out and had actually crossed the Arkansas River. They state that they now think that they will go into winter quarters, and I just learn that Capt. Johnson has written, that he expects to get home to Christmas. I expect Julie is in high glee this night - I shall see her tomorrow morning, as she is our next neighbour. Christian got unharmed out of both the last two bloody battles in Iuka and Corinth - and he writes me he is getting along finely since he has got his horse back and the winter clothing we sent him.

As for you, I hope you spend your Christmas happily with your sweet little dove in the the bosom of a cheerful family circle, - I hope it, tho' it may not be so, and perhaps you are off in the mountains and hills, chasing or chased, and perhaps too that you have been in a bloody battle that we long time have expected at or near Fredericksburg. Somehow I feel like you were safe, - and God grant that it may prove true. I would be delighted to hear that you were out of the turmoils of the war, and engaged in some safer business, and that at least one of my grown boys might be saved for me and for a useful and honorable after life, when the war should be ended, if ever it is to end. The expectation of the gigantic struggle that is near at hand on all sides, and the calling out of still more men, has at the last time created a gloom and despondency, that I sometime sicken to see, as I yet hope that we will be able to withstand the shock and drive the enemy back, and that when that gigantic effort has proven ineffective, the undercurrent of the feeling and writing for peace that necessarily must exist so well in the North as in the South, will swell up to the surface and arrest the current to a peaceful termination; and I don't think that I will be deceived in the expectation of the intervention of European powers. - I think it will come one fine morning, suddenly and when we least are looking for it.

The situation here is getting tolerably hard, and prices have risen to an unknown height. Owing to a severe draught the wheat crop was a failure in the prairie country - and corn crop still worse; but on account of having a large supply of wheat from last year, it opened with sale of wheat at one dollar a bushel and from 4 to 5 $ pr cwb. [?] of flour, but having entirely failed in the eastern part of the state and in the western from the Brazos, waggons came in in such a number that prices rose directly up to 7 to 10 and from 10 to 12 and at last 15$ pr cw.. of flour, and cannot now be had for money. Corn right here on Cedar Creek could at first be bought for 60 cents to 1 $ a bushel. but wagons streaming in from the North and West raised it suddenly to $1.25, a price which we thought extraordinary, on account of the vast quantity raised in all the eastern and southern portion of the state.
But as the most got slightened and it was found necessary to fatten the hogs on corn only, it soon took a rise even there from 50 [cents] up to 75 and $1.00, at what price it was stationary some time, till a fearful inundation of negro droves from Louisiana, Arkansas and Mississippi, - sometimes thousands in a drove with mules and horses, brought it up to 1.50 and $ 2.00 a bushel and hard to get at that, not on account of scarcity, but from a notion they took to quit selling entirely, undoubtedly with the speculation to raise it up to a still higher figure, and I should not wonder if it came up to 4 or 5 $ a bushel. As a natural consequence pork is contracted at 15, 20 and even 25 [cents] @ lb. Here was an abundance of hogs, but as they would not stand the winter without feeding, they were bought up and driven off to Red River, where corn seems to be inexhaustible.Thousands have in this way been sold in this neighbourhood, and money distributed all around.

Droves of beeves are also taken off by [the] thousands, but still the prices have not risen proportionally, and 16 and 20 $ for 3 and 4 years old have been ruling. I sold 30 head 4 years old, including some few Georgianas Salt has been and still is rising higher and higher, till they now ask 25 $ a sack, - altho' new furnaces are rising every day and new wells dug - the whole saline prairie both at Sabine and Nueces looks like an enormous large city, composed of small loghouses, furnaces and wells, in one confused mass. Every boiler from from old sawmills round about are converted into evaporating kettles, and the Jordans Saline [?] has now a population of 4 to 5000 men - very few women. That is a common fair, where every thing of eatables and clothing is exchanged for salt - sweet potatoes @ 2 @ 3 $ bushel, butter @ 40 cents to 1 $ @ lb., corn 3 $, flour 20 cents @ lb [etc.] An old coat or a pair of old breeches easily commands a sack of salt, as also shoes or boots. Leather is almost impossible to be had owing to that every tanyard has had government contracts to deliver a certain quantity of shoes, and they work up every hide before it is more than half tanned; but a large portion of the farmers are now making their own leather, and next year I think it will be plentif l and come down to reasonable prices. The standard price for a pair of leather shoes is now 5 $, but hard to be had at that.

A good many believe or try to bring about the opinion, that these high prices are chiefly owing to a depreciation of the Confederate money; but as certainly as it is, that I at this time with gold or silver might buy the most of above named articles at half the price, just so certainly is it, that if gold and silver was the circulating medium and so plentiful as the paper money now, the same articles would command the same prices, as the laws of demand would rule here, as sometimes back in California. In fact, I don't see any depreciation of our money yet here in Texas: the standard of value has always here been cows & calves, and they still hold their old prices and even are coming down to $ 10, like they were when we first emigrated hither. Lumber, that always commanded ready cash like sugar & coffee, is stationary at the old prices, and little sale at that. Our sawmill has been idle all this year: I have had frequent propositions for selling it partly for the boiler to make salt, but always declined.Now I am on the point of starting an iron foundry. The idea has originated thus: At Mound Prairie, where there is established a large gun factory, and where my partner John Hanson is employed, they made an experiment for about 2 months ago to melt down some iron ore, - and by just burning the rocks on some wooden logs they decomposed them to a sort of sand, which they then gathered up and threw in a common blacksmith furnace, and smelted it down; and without any further process, they hammered out the smelted iron and found it to be of an excellent quality, equal and even superior to Norwegian iron, in toughness and durability.

A man by name of Hassel immediately made preparations to put up a small foundry, and tried to buy our engine;but Mr. Hanson that knows more of the foundry business than any man in this country, having been employed from boy up in the large N?ss Ironworks [Nes Jernverk, Norway], but never had imagined that the ore could be smelted by so easy a process, and aware too that we have inexhaustible iron beds in the Brownsboro mountains, of the same quality as in Mound Prairie, thought we had better try it on our own hook, and move our machinery to the old spring and put a foundry in operation on a small scale. He says that the whole outlay will not cost us more than 1000 dollars: we require only two large hammers, that we can procure from a foundry in Cass County, and 10 hands will be sufficient, which hands I think are exempt from the conscript service, and will therefore easily be had on moderate terms. I am going down to Mound Prairie soon after Christmas, and we will then finally make a [decision]. Iron is not to be had either in Houston, Shreveport or Jefferson, and it will readily command 50 cents @ lb. during the war. The Government gunshops will have to stop here if iron cannot be produced in the country.

Now I have scribbled full my paper, and altho' I might fill sheets with speculations on politics, I think you by the above has got a little view of our situation. Therefore expecting a letter from you, and wishing you all prosperity and happiness,

I remain your fond loving father,
John R. Reierson

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