Perry County AlArchives History.....Letters from John F. Vary to Bennett Vary
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File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by:
 Kathy *Vary* Becker, dkbecker@sprint.ca August 2000


This correspondence was from Marion, Alabama lawyer, John F. Vary to his brother 
Bennett H. Vary, district attorney in Ogdensburgh, New York, after the fall of 
the Confederacy. John F. Vary had moved down to Alabama from New York as a young 
man. This letter gives an idea of what happened after the Civil War in Marion, 
Perry Co., Alabama. 


Marion, Perry Co., Alabama
Aug 22 1865

Dear Brother Bennett

Your favour of May 17 is just rec'd & I hasten to inform you that you have 
written to one who is really living and who is made to rejoice by the reception 
of a letter so brotherly & kind.  The Spirit in which it is written renders it 
thrice welcome and most highly valued.

I regret most deeply & sincerely that I did not visit you all at the north 
before the rebellion and especially is a repugnance given to this regret by the 
sad intelligence which your letter brings me of the death of our aged mother. I 
remember well the last time I saw her.  She and our Father were there together & 
both gave me their parting blessing.  The moments quickly passed and I thought 
not it was my last last earthly interview with my dear parents. Vividly those 
moments now return to my recollections and they seem with holy solemnity to 
bring sacred messages parental love as my parents then appeared to me.  So well 
the image of both ever remain bright in my memory and I will ever cherish them 
with filial affection.  I had a great desire to visit Mother & also all of you 
at the north.  I had also then a great desire to be the possessor of wealth when 
I made the visit & this desire was too predominate.  I now see & feel how unwise 
it was.  I should however have visited you all before this time probably in 1861 
but for the rebellion of the state of the country.

You express in your letter a desire to know something of my condition.  At the 
breaking out of the war I was engaged in a profitable professional business, had 
a good home, eighteen slaves then worth considerably over $20,000.  Also had 
good solvent debts due me & money on hand.  I then owed but little mearly 
current expences which I could have paid at any moment.  Early in the war the 
Law business went entirely down.  By legislative enactments as well as on 
account of the feelings of the people & the condition of the Country, civil 
business was pretty much wholy suspended in the Courts.  Every thing in the way 
of living ran up to enormous prices. Corn went up to $5 & on to $10 per bushel, 
Turkeys $15 to 20 each, Wheat $10 to $20, Seedlet potatoes $5 dollars to $10 per 
bushel, Irish potatoes $20 dollars or more, Butter $3 to $5 per lb.  I paid 75 
cts. per lb for salt $1.50 cts. for flour per lb. $500 dollars for 10 pairs of 
negro shoes, before the war could buy for $1.25 per pair, $11 dollars per lb for 
sugar, $20 dollars per lb for coffee, $40 per lb for tea, $10 per yad for 
Callico. Speculators Contractors seem to be coining money & farmers seem to be 
doing pretty well.  I was not in any of these classes. It seemed difficult for 
almost any one else to make buckle & tongue meet.  As things where going, I 
concluded I must make some arrangements for the support of my family during the 
war.  Consequently I bought a farm of about 420 acres half mile from the 
Corporation limits of the town for which I paid $10,800 cash down and moved my 
negroes & family on the farm.  I thought by doing this I could make enough on 
the farm to support my family and that I would be so near town that I could 
attend to such law business as I might have & that when the war was over I would 
move back to town again.  But with the fall of the confederacy my negroes became 
free & consequently unmanageable & as property valueless some of them behaved 
badly and I sent them away & others left of their own accord.  Those that 
remained won't work enough to pay their vicitles & clothes and my crops are not 
half worked or cultivated & on account of this and the dry weather I fear I 
shall not make near enough to do me another year.
The tumble of the Confederacy & the blowing up of slavery have sent the price of 
land down to what point I know not.  It's so low down I can't find it.  I have 
offered my farm for $6,000 will willingly take $3,000 but don't believe can get 
$5 per acre for it now.  Shortly before the fall of the Confederacy one of my 
Creditors paid me $20,000 another $25,000 another 750 and these together with 
what I had on hand at the time of the time of the tumble amounted to over 
$70,000 all in Confederate treasury notes all of which is not worth a cent.  The 
Confederate government owes me $2750 interest taken from me for which I never 
have or ever shall have one cent & some of this very properly fell into the 
hands of the U S by the surrender of Gen Taylor.  I had also $17,000 dollars in 
Confederate bonds which during the war I had been compelled on one time or other 
to take and these are worthless.  My taxes last year was $3,000 which I paid. 
Besides all this I have debts due me which at the beginning of the war I 
regarded as good as gold but which now are worth nothing not 2 cents on a 
dollar.  What other little property I have left is not worth much.  I have 
worked hard day & night for many years & with some success.  The beginning of 
the war found me in comfortable I may say easy circumstances.  Had I then been 
living at the North with as much property in value as I had in possessions here 
I could have been regarded as on the list of wealthy men, and I was not by any 
means regarded here as a poor man but rather good thriving circumstances & well 
to do.  For years past I not only had all the money I needed but could have 
raised any amount I desired but now I not only have no money but know not how am 
to get any very soon or how I can raise any amount worth naming.  The 
Confederate money and bonds I had on hand at the fall of the Confederacy belong 
---to myself & to others who had entrusted business to me & growing out of 
business to me amounted to $70,000 and the whole of it is not worth a chew of 
tobacco.
A few weeks ago I was conversing with my wife about my situation & told her that 
if I could save $10,000 out of the wreck I would go back to the north and be 
satisfied.  But if I cannot save any thing and could only get where I can 
practice my profession as profitably as I could here before the war I will not 
ask any odds with my experience with such habits of economy as I am sure I 
should adopt.  I could in a good degree reinstate myself in a few years.  Some 
think that the practice of law will be pretty good here--others that it will 
not.
I think that when we get our courts under way again there will be apparently 
considerable professional business to be attended to at first, but that it will 
be a pile of chaff with but a little wheat & little pay & that it will soon 
subside into a very small & a sort of pettifogging business. The prospect of the 
practice here as I look at it is not at all inviting to me.
My paper bids me close.  You kindly suggest that you may possibly be able to 
obtain some place or position for me which may be service to me.  I do not see 
what in the world you can do in this regard but still I thank you kindly for the 
suggestion.
But in my present straightened circumstance I am ready to do anything useful & 
honorable which will bring me present aid
Give my best love to Brother Daniel & my sisters and their cherished ones.  Say 
to them that the rebellion has made their brother John a poor man--poor indeed--
but he will be happy truly happy to be kindly remembered by them--
Present my kindest regards to your wife and thanking you for your kind letter 
and manafest interest in my behalf.  I remain
Your affectionate brother
Jno. F. Vary