[Archive of Family Papers Involving John Bozeman, a Captain in Company C of the 29th Georgia Infantry, His Sister, Sarah A. Bozeman, and Various Cousins and Associates]

[Various locations, mostly in Georgia and Florida, 1876. Very good.. Sixty manuscript letters and documents, totaling approximately 110pp., plus a handful of drawings and a manuscript architectural sketch. Some wear and occasional chipping and minor losses to letters. Occasional minor repairs. An eclectic and wide-ranging archive containing unique reportage of antebellum Georgia, as well as events during and after the Civil War, in the form of numerous letters and documents written to and among several members of the Bozeman and Lewis families of Georgia and Florida, as well as some of their friends and business associates. The letters largely concern the communication of family matters written to John Bozeman and Sarah Bozeman by various cousins and friends. The correspondents include Mary A. Bozeman, Abby E. Bozeman, Elisha W. Bozeman, Mary Turner, David Beasley, Mary A. Lewis, and others. One letter was written by John Bozeman, and several were written by Sarah A. Bozeman. The letters emanate from locations in Georgia such as Grooverville, Jefferson County, Charlton County, Dawson, and Thomasville, as well as Liberty County and Monticello, Florida.

John David Bozeman was born October 26, 1836 in Jefferson, Florida. He married Sarah Blanche Lewis in 1858 before moving his family to the recently platted town of Quitman, Georgia in 1859. A handful of his sister Sarah's letters were written to John the year he moved to Georgia. John worked as a carpenter before mustering into service after the Georgia 29th was reorganized in May 1862 following the passage of the Conscription Act. He enlisted from Thomas County, in Company C, known as the "Seventeenth Patriots," under Captain Hiram C. Bowen, which became a part of the western army. Bozeman fought under generals Bragg, Johnston, and Hood.  Following the Civil War, Bozeman returned home to his family in Quitman where he took up farming; some of the present documents relate to Bozeman's home and other matters in Quitman. He and Blanche raised eight children before her death in 1916. John Bozeman passed away at the age of 83 on May 16, 1920.

Though John Bozeman's one letter is dated January 25, 1866, it was actually written in 1865, during his service in the Confederate Army during the last months of the Civil War. Bozeman would spend several stints in the hospital during the war, where he suffered a mysterious illness which seemed to affect him over the course of the intervening years. Writing from "Fair Grounds Hospital No. 2" in Montgomery, Alabama, Bozeman informs his wife that he and his unit were almost captured at the Battle of Nashville. Sadly he reports that only four members remain from his company. He tells Sara that he is on his way to Opelika, as his hospital moved around the south as various Union forces threatened their convalescence. He asks his wife to "write all that has taken place since I left old Georgia."

The present collection also includes six letters from Bozeman's sister Sarah A. Bozeman written between 1858 and 1862 from Monticello, Florida. Sarah writes all of these letters to John and Sara Bozeman, informing them of activities and news of the home front in Florida, the watermelon and peaches she is enjoying, updates on the health of various family and friends including the death of a brother from "the staggers," information on a "tolerable good crop," and more. Sarah's 1862 letter includes news of the return of the 5th Florida Regiment from Richmond and the death of her "one tru love" from the measles in Little Rock, Arkansas.

The archive also includes letters to John from other siblings and relatives. His cousin Mary A. Bozeman reports she is "learning to paint on glass and to make bonnets and to cut without any patterns anything I want to. I have painted too as pretty pictures as you ever saw." James E. Bozeman writes to inform John that he has recently moved to Terrell County, Georgia, and that he has "cancer in my mouth on my under jaw." Another cousin named Abby E. Bozeman writes two informative letters which each mention her teaching job at a rural school in Terrell County; she says she is not making enough from the "very unpleasant business" of teaching school and asks John to look out for extra work for her "such as sewing." Yet another Bozeman cousin named David Beasley writes a handful of letters to both John and Sara from Thomasville, Georgia. Beasley's letters relate details on a recent drought, smallpox in Thomasville, the lateness of the year's crops, being stuck in Grooverville without a horse, food shortages, and other matters. A Lewis cousin, Mary Turner, writes four letters to Sara Blanche Lewis Bozeman from Liberty County, Florida in 1856 and 1857. In these letters, Mary Turner informs Sara Blanche about family health matters, including her own recent sickness. In addition to the family letters, the collection includes a handful of letters from friends and associates writing to the Bozemans about various matters; in one of these letters, the correspondent, L.W. Bethea, begs forgiveness for long overdue wages owed to Bozeman, reports on the recent election in which his interests were "badly beat" by Grant, and observes that he is looking for work but that "most of cobblers in this county are Negroes, and the most of them are very rough though you know the nature of Negroes."

After the Civil War, Bozeman and his wife Sara Blanche Lewis Bozeman settled in Quitman, Georgia. A couple of the letters and documents here concern business matters for Bozeman in Quitman. The first is a highly-detailed three-page contract dated in 1869 between Bozeman and a builder named Josiah Paine for the construction of a home for Bozeman in Quitman. The second document is an 1876 agreement between Bozeman and a contractor named W.A. Bowen for the rental of various pieces of carpentry equipment. There is also a rather striking architectural drawing of the front elevation of a two-story structure by Bowen & Wind in 1856. This elegant structure was likely drawn by English architect John Wind or one of his associates; Wind was a prolific architect in southwestern Georgia during this time, and designed several monumental plantations in the state; the firm of H.C. & W. Bowen were Thomasville builders who erected many of Wind's designs. It is not know whether this particular drawing pictures the exact structure built by Bozeman, or was simply a reference for him. Rounding out the archive are numerous manuscript poems (at least one of which is signed at the end by Sara Blanche Lewis) and pencil sketches.

An informative collection of unique, firsthand historical documents that provide much of interest relating to home front matters in Georgia and Florida before, during, and after the Civil War.