Index

The John McCoy Family papers contain letters, discharge papers, and pension payment records from 1847-1899. The bulk of the letters are to Martha Black McCoy from her husband John McCoy after his likely enlistment as a substitute soldier for the Union Army during the Civil War. McCoy received a $627 bounty which was more than double the normal enlistment bounty at the time. The letters describe his time stationed at Fort Totten in New Bern, North Carolina as well as at two separate military hospitals. They detail his ongoing health problems, the financial pressures his wife and family faced at their home in Quebec as well as the difficulties in transferring enlistment money to a Canadian spouse. In addition to letters to his wife there is one letter to his son Archibald as well as a letter to his wife from a relative, Elizabeth Anderson, and a letter to John McCoy from William Weed. Additional documents relate to McCoy's military service and marriage and include a discharge form, a pension payment form and a note attesting to the marriage of John McCoy to Martha Black.