RICHMOND Va. MAY 24 1862, (type 3a) CDS with matching DUE 5 (type O) on long soldier’s folded letter from son to father to Read B. E. Habersham Manchester W. & M. R.R. So. Ca. with endorsement of R. W. Habersham Company C Hampton Legion S.C.V. (Army of Northern Virginia). Good letter stating he is doubtful of obtaining a furlough. Two armies are camped close by and he does not want to seem to be running away in the face of an engagement. He is thinking of joining an artillery company or buying a horse to serve in a corps of Partisan Rangers for service in western Virginia. He tells his father to use his own judgment about coming to visit. Ex Harry Muldrow. $150.

Richard W. Habersham was born in South Carolina in 1844 to Reverend Barnard E. and Harriet Habersham, Richard Wylly Habersham was only seventeen when he enlisted as a private in the Hampton Legion infantry of South Carolina on June 19, 1861. Assigned to Company C of the Manning Guard, Habersham subsequently participated in some of the most intense fighting of the Civil War. His engagements included First Manassas (First Bull Run), Seven Pines (Fair Oaks), Gaines Mill, Second Manassas (Second Bull Run), and Sharpsburg (Antietam). Habersham also worked at Howard’s Grove Hospital in Richmond, Virginia, in late summer of 1864. While it appears Habersham survived the war, his postwar movements are difficult to trace. By 1866 he had moved to Brazil, where he was joined by his older brother Robert.