Killing a Dream

(The following account is taken from my ggg Uncle Joshua Frier’s Civil War journal. The original is located in the State of Florida Archives)

My (next) youngest brother fourteen years older than my self was an age that rendered him liable to the (Conscript) “Act.” Various ways and means was presented and discussed by the family, but there seemed no relief except by substitute and the price of this commodity was so high until it was a luxury only for the rich. Ultimately it was decided the onely (only) thing that could be done under the circumstances was for him and a nephew who was allso (also) of proper age to enlist which they reluctantly did in the 8^th Fla. Infantry. Shortly afterwards that organization was ordered to Virginia. Our nephew went and shortly after yielded up his life at Antitem (Antietam). The idea of going so far away from home preyed on my brother Samuel’s (this name was marked out in the original) mind until he deserted; he remained concealed in different portions of the State for a bout (about) a year. When a house that him (he) and two other men resting under a like charge was in, was surrounded, and without being asked to surender (surrender); a rifle ball was sent through his heart by a creature that (who) claimed to be a Confederate soldier. This occurred on the 17 day of Oct. 1863 in Irwin County Georgia, and but a few miles from the spot where Jefferson Davis was captured. I remember when the last-named event took place some of the family remarked that it seemed the hand of Providence was in it, that the nominal head of a government should be captured almost (almost) on the spot where the same Government had willfully murdered  one of our family less than two years before. The other two men, George Paulk, and Lenord (Leonard) Slaughter ws captured and sent to the front where they died before the surender. (surrender)

After brother Samuel (again marked out in the original volume) was killed the reader may naturally supose (suppose) that our family loyalty was not what it even was before.