Thank you for all of your time and effort. I can see I really need to transcribe all the letters and see where they take me. I think he was trying to get a pension. My goal was to request his service records, but it appears you came up with the same dead end I did.

I have learned since I first posted that the I. G. DePre is in fact J. G. DePre. B. L. Brady is B. Lewis Beaty. The handwriting is very hard to read.

I don't know how Austin got to N. C. where he married my great-grandmother other than he was somewhere closeby at the end of the war. I have not been able to determine his parents names. The earliest census I can find him in is 1880 in Raleigh, North Carolina. I will follow up on the Austins you listed in your post.

Another one of the letters is from a R. B. Singleton, Socastie, S.C. He states in part of his letter "It has been a good long time since we were together and we have seen a good many ups & downs since we saw each other. The old veterans are getting scase(sp) now and I want to get the pictures of as many of my old commade(sp) as I can. Especially of those that were Boys like you and I were. I want to see what kind of men they grew to be. Send me yours if you will and I will greatly appreciate it."

Wouldn't it be wonderful to see his collection of photos!

Again, thanks for your help.

Joan