Tex. Confederate Tells Slaveowner of Drowning of Her Slave While Working on Defenses

This brief letter informs slaveowner Jane Holland of Danville, in Montgomery County, Texas, that her slave John had been drowned off the steamer Diana at Galveston. The now-extinct town of Danville was located approximately five miles northwest of Willis and about fifty miles north of Houston.

[CIVIL WAR; SLAVERY.] F. H. Rice, Autograph Letter Signed, to Jane Holland, Houston, Texas. 1 p. + envelope with Confederate postage stamp (CSA 11), 7.75" x 10.625". Expected folds; small separation on one fold; some loss to right edge, not affecting text; very good.

Complete Transcript
HdQarts Labor Bureau
Houston Aug 1st 1864.
Mrs Jane Holland
Danville Tex
Madam
Your boy "John" was drowned offboard "Steamer Diana" Galveston. The particulars of the case I can not give. He was drowned July 25th 1864.
I am / Madam / Very respectfully
Your Obdt. Servt.
F. H. Rice Lt. & Chief Labor Bureau

Historical Background
In April 1862, General W. R. Scurry called on slaveholders in twenty Texas counties to send one-fourth of their male slaves between the ages of 16 and 50 to Galveston to work on fortifications there. In 1860, those twenty counties had nearly 15,000 male slaves of the appropriate age. If all slaveowners had complied, Scurry would have had approximately 3,500 laborers, but he never had more than several hundred at any one time to work on the fortifications in 1862.

Although the Union Navy took the city of Galveston in October 1862, the Confederates drove the small Union force out on New Year's Day of 1863, and the United States never attempted another landing, due in part to the fortifications built by slave labor. The Union Navy did, however, closely blockade the port city for the rest of the war.

In July 1863, General John Bankhead Magruder ordered any owners whose slaves had run away from government service and returned home to return them or the Confederate government would impress double the number escaping. In November of that year, the Labor Department called on citizens in Travis and surrounding counties to send one-half of their male slave labor force to construct defensive works around Austin.

On May 23, 1865, H. McKay, formerly in charge of the Labor Bureau in Texas, wrote to the mayor of Houston: "many negroes, formerly in the Government service, are straggling about this city, and...I have no means of controlling them. For the safety of the city, I would respectfully suggest that your City Police and good citizens be directed to arrest and forward to their masters such negroes as may be found proper passes: and in case they cannot be sent home; that they be imprisoned until order prevails in the city and country."

The intended recipient, Jane Elizabeth McGill Holland, died by November 1863. On November 21, 1863, J. M. Westmoreland, an uncle by marriage of the Hollands' two small children, petitioned the probate court for letters of administration, as the children had no male relatives in the state, except their grandfather. On December 31, 1863, T. J. Westmoreland filed a bond for $45,000 as administrator of the estate. He filed an inventory of the estate and a list of accounts against the estate in March 1864. On January 3, 1865, he filed a first report that declared that "John, a negro man was pressed by Confederate government and died in said service Jul 4th, 1864. Two births. Two mules pressed by said Government Spring 1864 and not yet returned."

Jane Elizabeth McGill Holland (1828-1863) was born in South Carolina. In 1850, she married William P. Holland (1821-1863), who was born in Georgia. In 1860, they lived in Montgomery County, Texas, where he was a farmer with $7,900 in real estate, and $26,925 in personal property, largely consisting of 25 enslaved African Americans. Of those slaves, 10 were adult males, subject to impressment by the Labor Bureau. The Labor Bureau may have learned of her husband's death early in 1863 but not of her death by November 1863, when Lt. Rice sent this letter eight months later.

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