Abstract:
In an 1865 letter to J. Evans Brown in Australia, Governor Zebulon Vance writes he is depressed by defeat, without funds, and thinking of emigrating to Australia. Quickly recovering his optimism and fortune, Vance was re-elected as Governor in 1876 and later completed four terms in the U.S. Senate. Vance's letter to Brown, explained in further detail in the article, describes conditions in North Carolina at the end of the war and the start of Reconstruction.