This collection consists of a single letter written by A. C. and M. A. (Abner C. and Mary Ann Hansard) during the American Civil War. Addressed to "Dear Brother & Family," the letter is dated from Tazewell, Claiborne County, Tennessee on February 24, 1865. Although the letter bears two sets of initials, it was almost certainly written by Mary Ann Marcum (or Markham) Hansard to her brother James Marcum. The letter focuses on local wartime hardships, including the difficulty in procuring food: "[W]e have had a hard time of it for the last year to live at all we had to [eat] wheat brand for bread last summer for sometime and meat was almost a stranger you will think strange when I tell you the commes[s]ary [sic] was in one mile of our house with plenty of white flour and bacon and we had a right to draw if we had money but owing to rogues swindlers and dishonest people that owed us and would not pay us we could not buy." The writer also reports on widespread robberies in the area: "[F]ive or ten armed men will go through a neighbourhood enter the houses at a late hour of the night and rob them of everything that was valuable and perhaps take every bite their children had to eat ..." After mentioning a local revival, the writer advises her brother not to hold a grudge against Mr. Mountain and discusses family matters, including the recent death of their father, and activities of neighbors and acquaintances. The letter is accompanied by a typed transcript.