John Cheesborough was born in Georgetown, S.C. He was cashier of the Bank of Charleston, first in Charleston, S.C., and later in Columbia, S.C. Anderson died at Biltmore, N.C. The collection consists of letters, mainly 1859-1864, from John Cheesborough while working for the Bank of Charleston, to his wife, Lou, in Asheville, N.C. The letters concern family matters and personal experiences and public events Cheesborough encountered while in Charleston, 1859-1861, and in Columbia, 1862-1864. Cheesborough commented on high prices and scarcities of goods; activities of the bank; the Confederacy's hopes for European intervention; counterfeit notes in circulation; the difficulty his mother experienced in attempting to travel from Philadelphia, Pa., to the South; and military activities, such as attacks made on Charleston by federal forces, a ship carrying munitions and other supplies that ran the federal blockade at Charleston, troup movements through Columbia on the way to Virginia, and the death or wounds of friends in the Confederate army. An 1876 letter from Cheesborough to his wife mentions recuperating from an illness and travel to New York City, N.Y. There are scattered letters of other family members, including an 1893 letter describing travel in Europe and plans to study at Edinburgh.
