CAMPBELL COUNTY, GA - BIOS James Henry Durrett Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm This file was contributed for use in the USGenWeb Archives by: Dianne Crawford Table of Contents page: http://www.usgwarchives.net/ga/campbell.htm Georgia Table of Contents: http://www.usgwarchives.net/ga/gafiles.htm Exerpts from stories written down by Louvie Durrett McBrayer. She loved to write and recorded all the stories her father, Andrew Jackson Durrett, told her. Andrew was the son of Ben. This section is about James Henry (Bud) on his return from the war. Below is a letter he wrote to his family. "One day a letter came from Bud. He was in South Carolina, was having chills, and had one each day for two days, but missed the next and hadn't had one that day. When he went for the mail he got to ride the cars. Then another letter came and he had the measles and was sent back into the lines too soon. They'd settled in his lungs, leaving him with a bad cough. This worried them all. They knew that when anyone relapsed with measles he never got over it or had any more health. The mother knew that it would give him consumption and kill him." "When Daddy came home from the war he was the same old Daddy, only lines of worry and care marked his face and there was a sad light in his eyes. Then Bud came home. Could this be Bud, this skeleton of a man, so pale and feeble? It broke all hearts to look at him. Then a fit of coughing seized him, they caught and held him up. They got him into the house and onto the bed as quickly as possible. His strength was about gone. War and measles had sealed Bud's death warrant. He didn't live long. He was carried to County Line and buried in the old cemetery, around the edges of which he had galloped and played when a carefree boy. There were sad hearts in the old home for many a day." This family lived in the Whitesburg area of Campbell County which later became Carroll County. Camp Chase near Columbus, Ohio Aug. 26th, A.D. 1864 Dear Mother, It is with no small degree of pleasure that I attempt to write you a few lines which will inform you that I am well and doing well. Ma, I have wrote you one letter besides this one but for fear that you never received it I will write you one more. I was captured on the 22nd of July. Me and Lieut. King, J.R. McWhorter, and J.F. Long and Capt. Longino and Gethro Jones. We are all at Camp Chase, Ohio, except Lieut. King. Ma, one page is all that I am allowed to write. Ma, I would be glad to hear from home now and to hear all the news. Ma, write and place the letter in an envelope and put no stamp on it and back it to me at Camp Chase, Ohio prison II3 and not seal it and then take one that has a confederate stamp and back it to what ever place the flag of truce goes through at. You can get somebody to back it then and put the other in it so nothing more but remain as ever. J.H. Durrett NOTES: The Durretts lived in Campbell County in the Whitesburg area. This area later became Carroll County. James Henry Durrett fought in the Civil War in the 30th Inf. Company K of Campbell County. His father, Benjamin, also fought in the same company. The pictures are of Benjamin and his wife Jane Emmeline Barron Durrett. The letters are from Benjamin when he was a guard at Andersonville and from his son James Henry (Bud) while he was a prisioner at Camp Chase in Ohio James Henry (Bud) did return home but in very poor health. He was described as the skeleton of a man who had measles during the Civil War and as my grandmother's notes say, the measles went to his lungs and he later had TB. He died in 1871 at the ripe old age of 29 and both he and his father, Ben, are buried in the old County Line Primitive Baptist Church Cemetery near Whitesburg. More about Camp Chase: http://www.geocities.com/Pentagon/Quarters/5109/