| Summary: | Neither woman is identified by name and no year is given with the date (February 4), though the letter was likely written in 1862. In it, the author advises her sister on selling several enslaved people (including Castile, "a good negro I believe tho getting on in years now"), and she gives details about recent transactions her own husband made: "William sold one family to get the woman with her husband . . . The woman about 46 for $350. One young man just grown 1100, one [give] under him 900 one boy under him 700." She then expresses sorrow over the death of their mother, Elizabeth Boykin Witherspoon, who was killed at her home in September 1861; she mentions that the morning after the murder, she cut locks of her mother's hair, assisted by Rhoda, one of the enslaved women who was later arrested and hanged for the crime. The author also describes a recent visit to their parents' old property ("I went down to the plantation last week . . . to take a last look at our dear Father's possessions before strangers call the land by their own names") and accuses another sister, probably Sarah ("Sally") Cantey Witherspoon Williams, of being selfish and treating their mother badly: ". . . so filled with her own cares & trials & then her treatment of my dearest Mother even up to her death such deep mortification to Mother even the day before she talked to me with tears streaming down her cheeks. All this seems to make Sally hard & I cannot go to her to pour out my sorrow when she seems so taken up with this worlds riches & so eager in pursuit of her wealth. I have been so kind as I knew how to be since she lost her husband & now her son, but I am constantly surprised to see how she pursues her old animosities even on the graves of her loved ones. I feel amazed that such busy care can find place when one would think sorrow filled her cup." [Note: In the letter, the prices listed for the enslaved people appear to include a punctuation mark like a period (i.e., $3.50, 11.00, 9.00, 7.00), but these prices seem far too low, even in the midst of the war.]
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