2pp, 7 3/4 x 9 3/4 in. (creasing at folds, loss on address leaf).

Henry E. Edmunds (1814-1910) writes to his brother-in-law Samuel Hannah (1792-1859) regarding management of a plantation in Virginia: "I determined at once I would hire the men hands out & keep only the women & children on the farm to make what they could & take care of the plantation. I was fortunate enough to hire the 5 men to Mr. Thomas Harvey near R.C. for $135 apiece to work on the South Side R Road & I understand they are well pleased & doing well they are working some when in the neighborhood of Walker's Church & are permitted to come to see the wives once in four or five weeks...." Edmunds later refers to the escape of 90 slaves from the Kanawha region of western Virginia, an area near the Ohio border which utilized enslaved labor to operate the salt mines which permeated the area. "I see from the papers 90 negroes have run off from Kanawha. I hope you have lost none of yours if I was living in Kanawha after such a stampede as that I would start to run over this way as as fast I could come."

The 1850 U.S. Federal Slave Schedule indicates that Edmunds enslaved at least 29 men, women, and children in Charlotte, Virginia. His letter provides a glimpse into the ways in which enslaved labor in Virginia was utilized beyond plantation-based agricultural production, while still subjecting enslaved persons to forced familial separations and difficult labor conditions.