For more on Littlejohn and his Melrose plantation in Louisiana, see lathrop1945.¹ This page is mainly concerned with tracking his movements to and in Texas during the war.

NB: Littlejohn seems to be referred to in the letters of his daughter Maggie Martin as “Papa.” She calls Robert Campbell Martin, Sr. “Father.”

Flight to Texas, 1862 to January 1863

According to lathrop1945, Littlejohn fled Melrose in late 1862, and around the turn of the year he appears to have left for Texas. On January 18, 1863, his daughter Maggie Martin wrote from Mansfield that:

Papa left us about ten days ago with his Negroes & wagons—he will haul salt from the salt works in Texas to Shreveport & take cotton & tobacco etc from Shreveport to Texas.²

In Texas

By April 1863 Littlejohn and family were “comfortably situated” on “a very sweet place” about seven miles east of Marshall.³ But their impressions of the region were apparently not favorable. His daughter Mollie wrote to Robert Campbell Martin, Sr., whom the Littlejohns invited for a visit, that “Pa is completely disgusted with ‘T,’ and the ‘T’s’—they have more respect for money than truth, and they seem to regard no contract they make as binding.” As an example she cited his difficulty in getting wheat to take back to the Teche on a four- to five-week trip Littlejohn took in late summer 1863. She signed her letter “Gloomy Hollow.”⁴

Some of Littlejohn’s “Negroes” may have been hired out in Tyler, and he apparently made 5,000 bushels of corn while in Texas.⁵ But many of his slaves were “quite sick” in late 1863 or early 1864, according to Mollie Littlejohn, “mostly sore throat accompanied with fever & severe headache.”⁶ In the same letter Mollie, writing from “Cedar Grove,” longed for the day when she could “bid an eternal adieu to these gloomy hills of Texas, for I do think it’s enough to sicken the heart as well as the body to live on them.”] In another letter to Maggie, Mollie reported that “poor old aunt Nancy” might even die of sickness, and reports that many of Pa’s “Negroes” were not in “very good spirits after their return from some trip:”So we judge for no one has been to the house to speak to us—but poor things, I scarcely censure them, for they are greatly to be pitied, being so provided, & so destitute of clothing.“⁷

The health of Littlejohn’s slaves remained poor in the spring of 1864, according to a report from Thomas Pugh Martin, who told his father that “all well at Mr. L’s except the darkies of whom several are suffering with ‘Meningitis’ a disease of the brain & spine, which is said to be very fatal to Negroes.”⁸ Maggie Martin also reported continued bouts of meningitis, which left “few Negroes well enough to work the corn” and Littlejohn’s crops “almost ruined with grass & weeds.”⁹

In early 1865 or late 1864, Littlejohn had some sort of legal dispute with a Mr. Ware, who was apparently considered by many in the area to be a Yankee sympathizer.¹⁰ Around this same time, according to Robert Campbell Martin, Jr., Littlejohn gave up “his place” and moved “his Negroes” to Marshall.¹¹

After the war, Littlejohn traveled back to Louisiana to see whether he could return, but apparently decided against it. According to Maggie Martin, he was still undecided as of October 1865 but had “pretty well determined to live either on Red River or remain in Texas.”¹² A later letter indicates that Littlejohn decided to settle near the Brazos, and that at least some of his former slaves in Louisiana were waiting to hire themselves out until they had heard from him for certain that he was not returning.¹³ Back in Texas, however, Maggie reported that “Pa is having a great deal of trouble with his Negroes—they are not worth having,” with the exception of “Old Nat” and his wife Mary.¹⁴

Postwar letters suggest Littlejohn ultimately ended up back in Marshall.