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May 27, 1863, Savannah Republican (Georgia)

Augusta, May 23, 1863.

                      Mr. Editor:–Having read in the morning papers of this day, May 23d, a set of resolutions drawn up and signed by J. N. Taliaferro, Capt. and Edward Clayton, Secretary, of the “gallant Walker Light Infantry,” of this city, now encamped at the Isle of Hope, in which they make a most earnest appeal to the citizens of  Augusta to send beyond the lines, or place in confinement, certain persons whom they accuse of giving “aid and comfort” to the enemy.  Now, as I do not wish any innocent person to suffer for my misdemeanors, I take this method of acknowledging my crime–if crime it be.  I have a son, dear to me as live, who is detained in Washington by circumstances beyond his control, and with whom we can hold no communication from this side by letter, as we have written a dozen of them, which he has never received.

                      Hoping to find one in the groups of Federal prisoners who would take a letter or message to him, I went with one of my daughters to see them.  Shall I say, that that Providence, who has guided me through a long life of three-score years, directed me to one who I think (though among our enemies) is a gentleman and a Christian.  I stopped in front of him, beckoned him to come to me, and asked him if he was going to Washington, and if he would take a letter for me; also, if he knew the Rev. Dr. Hall of the Church of the Epiphany.  He said he did, and would take letters or bundles or anything for us with pleasure, as he was Paymaster of the Indianola, taken at Vicksburg, and was obliged to report at Washington as soon as he was exchanged.  I returned home and got together such photographs as we had of my family and but one letter, that had been written the night previous, and went down again in the afternoon before the train left to give him the package (to which were then added two letters from some friends in this city) and sent some messages to my son.  The second time I went I took my whole family of children that he might report to my son that he had seen us all, which I did not think a crime, and as I have been taught from my earliest infancy to “Do unto others as I would have others do unto me,” under like circumstances, I extended to him some little courtesy which I thought due to a gentleman.

                      Mr. Editor, I make this confession publicly that the innocent shall not suffer for the guilty, and I also think my devotion to the good of my country, from the first dawn of this ungodly strife up to the present moment, must be understood by all right-minded persons.  One of my daughters presented to the Confederate Guard a bouquet in consideration of his kindness in allowing us to converse with the prisoner.  My greatest object in holding this communication with the prisoner was to let my son know the particulars of my heart-rending sorrow for the death of my gallant son, Edward, who lost his life at the head of (his) Cox’s battalion of Georgia sharpshooters in the bloody battle of Murfreesboro’.  Yours, most respectfully,

Margaret C. Hall.