William Leonidas Faulkner of the Waxhaws in Lancaster District enlisted in the Confederate Army on February 15, 1863. Between that date and July 30, 1864, Faulkner wrote 97 letters home, mostly to his wife and father. The letters have been preserved and are valuable for the insights they give in the life of a soldier.

Faulkner was in Company I, 17th Regiment made up mostly of Lancaster men, including a number of his relatives and neighbors. His first two months were spent in Wilmington, NC and Charleston, SC; the next several months in Mississippi and Alabama.

He was back on the coast at various camps until late May 1864 when his regiment was ordered to Virginia. He was in the battles of Clays Farm and Petersburg.

But back to the letters he sent home during the 15 months he spent in active duty. To his wife, he sent advice about farming and wished to know how his fields looked. "....tell me how your wheat & oats looks & how mutch cotton you are going to plant hot mutch corn how your stock looks..."

He inquired about his son, Samuel Davis Faulkner, nicknamed Buddy. He promised to send a ring to his daughter Lucy, nicknamed Sissy.

In every letter there were complaints about the food--unsifted meal (unsifted meant that weevils were cooked in the corn meal) and beef rations so small that two-days allotment were invariably eaten in one meal.

And there was homesickness. April 2, 1863, Faulkner wrote his wife (whom he addressed as Mrs. E.I.M. Faulkner): "I wrote a letter to father requesting him to get R.T. Hammond to Petition the Governor for me to get home for a month. Capt Steel says it can be done." (His father did not.)

Clothes had to be washed. "There is a boy in the Regiment who washes for 15 cents a garment. Soap is so high it is cheaper to hire the washing then to buy the soap...."

The wives and families of the men in Co. I would gather up food to send to the men by rail. Invariably, part of the food would be missing. "Our box came up last week. There was a good many things takeing out of it all of the flower and most of the butter and meat was gone. The very day it was fetched to camp we got orders to be ready to march at a moments warning & all the boxes & trunks was sent back to the other side of the river."

Mrs. Faulkner needed cotton cards (used to prepare raw cotton for spinning). Her husband tried to find them without success. Then, while at Sullivan's Island near Charleston, on December 17, 1863, he wrote, "Lizzy cotton cards is fifty dollars a pair in Charleston," but he still promised to send a pair by the next man who left for the Waxhaws.

At Lizzie's request he found some one who knew how to take off warts. "....take a horse hair & tigh tight around the wart tightening it every day untill it comes off. It is the only cure."

And then he was in Virginia. At Clays Farm "the night of the charge Grant gave order to have issued to every man a quart of whiskey some of them were so drunk that when they reached Lees fortifications that they actually fell over the entrenchments & when they shot off there gun they could not load it again. who ever heart tell of such conduct...."

It may have been his last letter home before capture. At the end of the letter Faulkner wrote, "I think by the morrow there will be tereable times here," and then he added "P.S. be sure to send word to Mr. John Lathen about the death of his son."

Captured at Petersburg by federal troops, Faulkner was first sent to Point Lookout, Va and then transferred to Elmira, NY where he died of typhoid fever on September 18, 1864. He was buried in Elmira cemetery.