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Biography/History:
Elijah Fleming was born near Camden, Madison County, Mississippi, on June 4, 1839. He was the second of eight children of Robert Boyd Walker Fleming, a planter, and Armadilla Ross Fleming. Robert Fleming owned a plantation in northern Madison County, in the area that would later become known as Cameron, a few miles northwest of Camden. In 1860, he owned $24,750 worth of real estate.
Elijah Fleming graduated from the Department of Arts at the University of Mississippi in Oxford in 1859. During the Civil War, he initially served in the Madison Rifles, Company I, Tenth Regiment, Mississippi Infantry, Confederate States Army, enlisting on March 26, 1861. He was discharged for disability on September 23, 1861. However, he went on to enlist in McKie Cavalry, Company M, Wirt Adams' Regiment (also known as Wood's Regiment and First Regiment, Mississippi Cavalry), Confederate Cavalry, on May 3, 1862.
Wirt Adams' Regiment participated in many of the main military actions in Mississippi during the war, including (among others) the Battles of Corinth, Iuka, Raymond, and Big Black River bridge, as well as Wilson's and Grierson's Raids and the defense of Vicksburg and Meridian. The regiment also saw action in Alabama, Louisiana, and Tennessee. Elijah Fleming, who had been promoted to sergeant in 1863, was wounded in the jaw on April 6, 1865, in a minor skirmish against the advancing Union cavalry under General James H. Wilson in Pickens County, Alabama.
The war having ended, Elijah Fleming was discharged on April 26, 1865, and returned home to Cameron the next month after recovering from his injuries. On June 21, 1865, he married Margaret Virginia Riley, to whom he had been informally engaged throughout the war. They had seven children before her death from tuberculosis in 1882.
Elijah Fleming worked primarily as a farmer; in 1870, he owned $6,300 worth of real estate. According to family, he received a portion of the plantation after his father's 1865 death, the rest being divided among his stepmother and three sisters. Some sources also indicate that Elijah Fleming worked as a bookseller and teacher.
Sometime between 1900 and 1910, Fleming began living with his daughter and son-in-law, Mary Lucy Fleming Ward and Arthur Ward, and their family. Around 1914, Fleming sold his farm and moved with the Wards to Jackson, Hinds County, Mississippi. Elijah Fleming died of appendicitis there on February 16, 1918, and was buried alongside his wife at Shiloh Cemetery in Cameron.
Scope and Content:
The collection consists of correspondence; miscellaneous papers; photographs; and biographical and genealogical information related to Elijah Fleming. Of particular interest is the correspondence, which contains letters written by Fleming to his future wife, Margaret Virginia Riley, while he was serving in Company M, Wirt Adams' Regiment, in the Confederate Cavalry during the Civil War. The letters discuss camp life and conditions, troop movements, rumors of future movements, the progress of the war in general, and occasionally battles or skirmishes in which Fleming's company participated. Fleming and Riley's relationship is also the topic of many letters.
Series Identification:
This series contains letters written by Elijah Fleming to Margaret Riley during his service in the Confederate States Army during the Civil War. There is also a request made by Fleming for a furlough in order to get married in January 1865, which was not approved. Though he seldom went into significant detail about the events surrounding battles or skirmishes, Fleming usually mentioned when he personally had been engaged in fighting, especially when he closely escaped injury. A few letters mention interactions with local communities near camp locations, and some ask about people and events from home. Many of the letters discuss the status of Fleming and Riley's relationship, and their future plans for marriage. Also of note are Fleming's discussions of soldiers, including himself, who would overstay their furloughs or make frequent trips home without permission, a failure met with greater tolerance and fewer consequences as the war went on.
Box 1, folders 1-2
This series contains a muster roll for Company M by an unknown writer. A note at the end of the listing gives additional names that "do not appear" on the roll and refers to events of the war, which suggests that the roll was copied from another source and made after the war. The series also contains a tax receipt for Elijah Fleming from the Madison County Sheriff's Office, dated December 8, 1874.
Box 1, folder 3
This series consists of seven photographs: one photograph each of Elijah Fleming and Margaret Riley Fleming, and one strip of five different photographs of Mary Fleming Ward.
Box 1, folder 4
This series contains biographical and genealogical information on the Fleming, Ross, Riley, and Ward families. This includes handwritten notes, typewritten notes with handwritten annotations, and a hand-drawn map, mostly written or drawn by one of Elijah Fleming's grandchildren; photocopies of pages from the book Ancestors and Descendants of Andrew Moore: 1612-1897 (folder 5); and a bound volume called New Pictorial Family Record, containing handwritten family history information, which was compiled during Fleming's life (folder 6).
Box 1, folders 5-6
Box List: