"Pleasant Hill Ark. Mar/62" penciled manuscript postmark with matching "Due 5," endorsed by T. F. Spence, McIntosh Regt., C.S.A., on neat outer folded lettersheet, Very Fine UNLISTED ARKANSAS USE. Not in CSA Catalog nor Bruce Roberts online census. Pleasant Hill is listed in the 1862 U.S. Post Office register in Franklin County, Arkansas. Today there is a Pleasant Hill listed as an unincorporated community in Garland County 7 miles west-southwest of Hot Springs, but it is not the same one as in Franklin County. The one in this listing is now in yet a third county, that of Crawford County just west of Franklin County. A neighborhood in the city of Mulberry, it was once a separate community. $750.

Alexander E. Spence (1837-1864) was 22 years old when he enlisted in the unit that later became Company B, 1st Arkansas Infantry, CSA. His first combat was at the Battle of Shiloh. Thomas F. Spence (1835-1862) was a popular young sheriff before enlisting and mustering in Company E, 2nd Arkansas Mounted Rifles as a first sergeant. Tom fought in Arkansas, Missouri, and Kentucky before being killed December 31, 1862, at the Battle of Stones River in Murfreesboro, Tenn. Alex sustained a serious thigh wound at Shiloh, returned home to recover, and eventually rejoined his unit. He fought in most of the major engagements of the Army of Tennessee, and rose to the rank of Captain before being killed at the Battle of Franklin, Tennessee. Originally buried at the battlefield, his family later exhumed Alex’s body and buried him next to his brother, Tom. Their father, Solomon, owned a popular hotel in Arkadelphia, Arkansas. Source: Mark Christ’s Getting Used to Being Shot At: The Spence Family Letters.