Polley, Joseph Benjamin. “A Soldier’s Letters to Charming Nellie.” 1908.
Joseph Benjamin Polley. "A Soldier's Letters to Charming Nellie." 1908.
Adopted by
Jack & Carmen Miller
Joseph Benjamin Polley. A Soldier’s Letters to Charming Nellie. New York: Neale Publishing, 1908.
Civil war letters written by a soldier in Hood’s Texas brigade to a young woman living in Texas. These letters describe, realistically but humorously, the life of a Confederate soldier. According to the 2008 edition of A Soldier’s Letters, “Polley was an unusually gifted writer, with a talent for satire and humor unmatched by most Civil War diarists.” Polley never published the full name of his pen pal, “charming Nellie,” although he used a photograph of her as the frontispiece of the book. She has recently been identified as Helen Wilkinson, a friend of Polley’s fiancée.