February 21, 1863---A.J. Peeler's letter to his Yankee nurse

FEBRUARY 21, 1863:         

Anderson James Peeler, Esq., former Clerk of the Florida State Legislature, is appointed First Lieutenant of the 5^th Florida Regiment (C.S.A.). Wounded at Gettysburg in July, he writes the following letter to his “Yankee” nurse. She was Euphemia Mary Goldsborough from Baltimore, Maryland. Miss Goldsborough was devoted to the Southern cause and tirelessly nursed wounded soldiers after South Mountain, Antietam and Gettysburg. She was also devoted to the underground efforts to smuggle food, supplies and medicines to confederate soldiers held in northern prisons and hospitals. She was later arrested by Union soldiers and banished to Richmond for the remainder of the war: 

Miss Goldsborough,

In placing my autograph in your book, I cannot allow the opportunity to pass of at the same time expressing for myself and my wounded and sick comrades the heart-felt gratitude we feel for your kindness to us here and at the College Hospital. Prisoners and strangers in a strange land, many whose fevered brows you bathed and to whose wants you have ministered with such indefatigable attention will long treasure in their hearts and memory you name and kind deeds with a feeling of sacred friendship.

I hope the fortunes of war may never be such as to throw us together under similar circumstances again but if such should be the case I can only hope that I may meet with one like yourself whose social attractions as a lady and cheering words and kindly sympathy has contributed so much to beguile the many weary hours of my almost unendurable situation. For I assure you our "College days" are the green spot of the days of my captivity. The greatest sacrifice you have made was to have humbled your proud spirit to meeting as social equals and treating with respect those whose conduct in the war have shown them to be enemies of "Woman", oppressors of woman, and destitute of manliness and true honor. May the day soon come when this unhappy war shall close with triumph to our arms and cause and when your friends, the "Florida Boys" shall have the pleasure of greeting you in the sunny south, the " land of  flowers" where by every means in their power they will be happy to show by acts what they feel at heart - their appreciation of your kind attention.

"My native land I turn to you

With blessing and with prayer

Where man is brave and woman too.

As free as mountain air." 

Lt. A.J. Peeler

Perry's Florida  Brigade

Image and correspondence text (c) Richard Ferry and Floridaconfederate.com