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acre payable in four years...the land is as rich as it possibly can be.? [Letter reference]. It is evident in the letter that Clifton has not yet been sold nor has Sea Song.
Another letter, dated December 3rd, advised Sarah that Andrew Jr. had been in New Orleans attempting to trade one of the plantations for the one on Bayou Macon. In the postscript, Samuel enclosed a clipping from a New Orleans newspaper, with the comment, ?You can judge by the prices of the hard times in New Orleans and how cheaply things can be bought?. [Letter references].
Probably the last letter Samuel wrote from Clifton was dated December 13, 1860. It is evident that Andrew Jr. has bought the place on Bayou Macon, and has hired an overseer. Still optimistic, Samuel wrote: ?It will be necessary to make a very large crop the first year...it is the general opinion Cotton will command a better price next fall than this ?,[Lettep-pefeFen?-e]. His final paragraph, however, tempered his optimism with realism: ?Pa will not be able to sell either of his places until financial affairs are easier. Consequently cannot meet his engagements either here or at Nashville as he anticipated. S.O. Nelson and Co. have suspended payment...I know his creditors are very uneasy and only waiting to see him to pounce upon him.? [Letter reference], (to do)
Even though the Jacksons had failed, John Claiborne was progressing handsomely. It is said that by 1861 he was ?out of debt and had an annual income of six thousand dollars,? a very large amount at that time.226
15^4^
On April 12, 1861,on the orders of General P.G.T. Beuregard of Louisiana, a Confederate cannon at Charleston fired the first shot at Fort Sumter.
Epilogue
On the first day of May, 1861, the Circuit Court of 1 lancock County rendered judgments against Andrew Jackson Jr. totaling $36,727. Among the petitioners were Asa Russ, John Toulme, and J.F.H. Claiborne. The largest debt was to W. R Adams, in the amount of $28,980.
226	bang, Herbert H^ Claiborne at Laurel Wood Plantation, 1853-1870, Journal of Mississippi Histroy, p. I-