(CIVIL WAR CONFEDERATE REFUGEES) Dabney Rainey Letter descr

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(CIVIL WAR--CONFEDERATE REFUGEES.) Dabney Rainey. Letter describing Confederados refugees arriving in Brazil from the American South. Autograph Letter Signed as "D Rainey" to his brother-in-law Joseph Reuben Herndon of Germanton, NC. 4 pages, 9 3/4 x 8 inches, on one folding sheet; folds, minimal wear. With typed transcript. Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 25 September 1867

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Dabney Rainey (1835-1870) of North Carolina settled in Brazil before the Civil War, helping with his brother Thomas Rainey's transportation business. After the war ended, he found himself in the vanguard of an influx of Confederate refugees--Os Confederados--looking to start over in a nation which still practiced slavery. This letter expresses his frustration with some of the newcomers: "We have had a great maney southern men here looking for homes, but very few of them are satisfied, and very nearly all have gone home or to some other country. . . . One of them has settled here. His hatred of the U.S. has induced him to do so. He says if he were bound for Hell from here, and had three weeks furlow in the U.S. that he would not stop, but go on to hell. God only knows what is to become of many of the poor devils which have come here." Discussing local conditions, he notes that "Brazilian money is very much depreciated on account of the Paraguayan War. The Paraguayans have been threshing them like Old Nick lately, and I would not care a tinker's --- if they were to kill the whole race."