The Bobbitt Family In America
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[28]"I received your letter last Tuesday and have procured for you the 45 subscribers who manifest great anxiety to get the paper.
"Our cause is advancing with rapid strides and I now believe we shall save Tennessee for our party.
"If I do not go on my contemplated trip to the North this summer, we intend to tender to you a public dinner at PINHOOK, which we think you will, in all courtesy to your friends accept.
"I assure you my Dear Sir, that all that is wanting in Tennessee is light, if thus spread in time, all is safe, it is just necessary to say to the opposition as Old Diogenes said to Alexander the Great, "Get out of my light.
"I could write about several things, that no doubt would be interesting to you, but I am in a great hurry. Excuse my excentricity and bad grammar and consider me as ever, Yours Undeviatingly.
To Col. J. K. Polk William Bobbitt.
On January 11, 1842, William Bobbitt as the County Surveyor, surveyed for James K. Polk, 323 acres of land in Yalobusha County, Mississippi.
In addition to official duties, William Bobbitt performed many personal favors for James Polk.
William Bobbitt acted as James K. Polk's agent in the administration of Polk's. property, slaves, and cotton gin, in Coffeeville, Mississippi. The most interesting letters between William Bobbitt and James K. Polk, concern his handling of the slaves. Many of Polk's slaves were leaving the land in Mississippi and going to their master in Tennessee. Much of this is written in an interesting book, "The Southern Plantation Overseer" by John Spencer Bassett, and published by Negro Universities Press of Westport, Connecticut.
James K. Polk served as President from 1845 to 1849. He died on June 15, 1849 in Nashville, Tennessee. I am sure that President Polk was instrumental in appointing William Bobbitt as a Major in the army. This appointment was apparently made in 1840. Major William Bobbitt served in the army during the Mexican War in 1846 in Company D, First Tennessee Infantry.
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