Morris Island cover addressed to Ms. W.E. Johnson, Jr. Morris Island, South Carolina, [27 September 1864]. With Charleston cancel and "10" stamp. 5 1/2 x 2 13/16 in. WITH Photocopy of letter by W.E. Johnson, Jr. previously enclosed. 4 15/16 x 7 13/16 in.

A cover from Confederate prisoner of war W.E. Johnson, who was one of the so-called "Immortal Six Hundred" - a group of 600 Confederate officers who were confined on Morris Island, at the entrance to Charleston Harbor, between June 1864 and the end of the war. William E. Johnson (b. 1827) was a 2nd Lt. in Company K of the 7th South Carolina Cavalry from Kershaw District, South Carolina. He was captured at Old Church or Cold Harbor, Virginia, on 30 May 1863. 

The group of prisoners, originally 50, was initially formed as a response to Confederates using Union officers as human shields in an attempt to cease the Union artillery barrage on Charleston. The group grew larger as negotiations of prisoner exchanges broke down after the Emancipation Proclamation, and the Confederacy maintained that all Black officers would be executed and Black soldiers sold into slavery. General Grant, therefore, issued Order 252, which halted POW exchanges until the Confederacy agreed to treat both white and Black prisoners of war equally. 

Of the 600 prisoners held at Morris Island, over 300 died of starvation due to retaliatory rations in response to conditions at Confederate prisons at Andersonville and Salisbury. The letter (of which only a photocopy is included here) notes the quality of their food: "the rations are very scanty + I am hungry all the time." 

After an outbreak of yellow fever, the prisoners were transferred to Fort Pulaski at the mouth of the Savannah River. At the war's end, many refused to take the Oath of Allegiance. 

[Civil War, Union, Confederate] [Manuscripts, Documents, Letters, Ephemera, Signatures, Autographs] [Postal History, Covers, Philately]

NOTE: The letter is a photocopy only. Only the cover is original.