Letter, 6 January 1838, of John C[aldwell] Calhoun (1823-1855), son of South Carolina’s elder statesman, to his older brother P[atrick] notes that he had not written earlier due to his recent travels.

Calhoun comments on his post-Christmas holiday trip to Abbeville Court House, S.C., and visits to Uncle Patrick’s and Cousin Patrick’s. “Mr. Wayland,” the letter goes on to say, “has quit keeping school,” and Mr. Kennedy was to start teaching on the first of February. Writing as he was from Millwood, plantation home of James Edward Colhoun, young Calhoun knew that Patrick would “want to know how we got down” and notes that they “came down in a cart.” Game was plentiful according to Calhoun, and he had “killed ten pigeons this year with the old shot gun.”