Day 81. May 20, 1862 Letter.
Note: There is also a May 20th diary entry.
81
the woods was all afire along the roads in places….
May 20 letter
(Note: The letters I reproduced for this manuscript appear exactly as they do in the original physical copy as the words move down the page; the line breaks are the same, as in Ephraim’s actual handwriting.)
Fraguin Co. Va. Cartells Station
May 20 1862
Dearest wife & children
I seat myself after a long march to give you
an account of our line of march since I last wrote to you
I wrote to you before we left the camp South of New
Market. which I hope that has reached you [illeg.] this
and I hope that this may find you all well
I am well at this time. We left the camp where I write
to you last. We left there on Monday morning the 12th
at 9oclock we took up the line of march came back to New
Market then filed to the right crossed south mountain into
the other valley south of the Shenandoah Valley we
camped in Page. County within 2 ½ miles of Luery the
county seat from there we took a North East dyrection
camped on Tuesday evenning in the woods. It was awful
Dusty and Smokey Monday & Tuesday we could not see
but a short distance and we look as if we never saw
water but we had a hard road to travel the woods was all
afire along the roads in places
on Wensday It rained nearly all day and the
roads was awful mudy we came into Frount Royal the
county seat of Warren County we camped within ½ mile
of town where we arrived at 4.oclock in the afternoon we looked
awful mudy as the whole of Shields Division was ahead
a (note: he crossed out “capt one regt”) the roads was one bed of mud the men
were all wet and then had to sleep on the wet
ground. The next morning which was Thursday which we took up
the line of march at 8½ oclock for a south east direction for the town of Warren
we came on some 10 miles we was haulted camped for the
night and the night was quite wet and on Friday morning
we took up the line of march at 8 oclock we came on to Gaines
Cross Roads where we was haulted cooked some coffee
and there was some rebel cavalry out scouting in the afternoon
about 4 ½ oclock there was one of the 110th company sent out scouting
they moved on came to the top of the hill in the road
about one mile from camp when the rebel cavalry made
a charge on our cavalry and was full chase after our
cavalry. when this company came to the tope of the hill our
men made a charge on them killed one of their horses
took two prisners and it was not knowen if there was any
wounded as they were all tied in the saddles. There was
two of our cavalry men was wounded there is the
certainty to wether there was more then 800 rebel
cavalry there was 3 to 400 of them when our men
made the charge on them. If there had been more
of our men sent out around I think they would
have taken them all prisners. We came on about 1 ½ mile
where we camped in the woods for the night the
next morning we took up the line of march at 6 oclock
in the morning we marched on through the town of
Warren in Fraguier Co this is a very handsome town
the most of the buildings are large and set back from
the streets and but very small houses but there
was about 6 negroes to each white person we came about
1 mile from town and camped where we was camped
over Sunday Monday morning we took up the line of
march at 5oclock in the morning we came on to
this point where we are resting to day but no telling
how soon we will move from here there is between 25,000
to 30,000 soldiers in this camp now we are all buissy fixing
up our cloathes. We expect to move on to Fredericksburg
28 mile from here 2 days march yet. We are camped near the
Rail Road along side of it the cars are running that
is the Government has charge of the Rail Road we are 42 miles
from Washington City now
we are some 9 to 12 miles from Manasses gap* or
where the bull run fight took place we have gotten
around through the country considerable we have
travelled considerable since we have left Harperstown we have
gone on foot all the way accept a short distance
on the Baltimore & Ohio Rail Road we have travel
I don’t know of much news now that is of importance
I believe that I have given you all the news now that I
know of just now I hope this may reach you in
due time I am real sorry that I never received the box
you sent I hope that I will be able to give you more
in my next letter. I have got a pain in my breast
now I don’t know what is the reason of it** I hope
you have plenty to eat and and the necessarys of life
Capt Huyett came back yesterday he said that
he was not up to see you I know you would like
very much to have seen him I will send the
list of the sale*** that I received some time ago
I don’t know of anything that I wish to know
If there is anything I wish you would let me hear them****
On Saturday our Regt was the advance and the spy of the Brigade
was on ahead and he meet a man and thought
that he was a rather suspicious looking character he asked
him if he had a letter for him he said he did not know
he said he would see so he handed the mail out
he had about 30 letters [the word spy is written in, in pencil, after the word “letters” just preceded] he got the letters and told
him that he was his prisner our spy told the
people in Warren that Jacksons army was coming
in the people looked quite gay until they saw the
American Flag***** they bit their lips the secesh
do some awful lying in regard to matters when
will you send me the Havelock map wrap It up and pay
the postage on the Havelock have it sealed up all
round let me know if you have received the trunk
yet and the canes Have the farmers get their corn
all planted let me know who Father has working for him
besides David give them my kindest
regards to all to Father Mother and all the rest
I must close give me all the news if nothing
happens I will write to you after we get down to
Fredericksburg I will look for a long letters from
you as that is the only pleasure is to receive a letter
from you I will look for something new I don’t know
[illeg.] Regt that Doct Lorney is Magor is in camped
near here he has gone to Washington City
Much love to you all I remain your affectionate Husband EB
Dyrect in care of Co D.
110th Regt 3 Brigade Shields Division Washington City D.C.
[He used pencil to write upside down on the 1st page of the letter: I received a letter– it was written May 3, finished on Saturday it was mailed the 12th]*
In pencil written inside pages 2 and 3: Saturday 24 we are now at Fredericksburg now we arrived here on Thursday last. There are a grate many soldiers here now and we don’t know how soon we will leave this place but we will stay here a few days. We are within 65 miles of Richmond.
Underneath Ephraim’s words is an illustration and the words SCHEFFER, PRINT Lady liberty in red, white, blue holding a flag in right hand, with a poem to her right:
“Then rally, rally round it! Stand up bravely for the right!
The people’s will is stronger than the dread oppressor’s might
Our country’s flag! unfurl it! Send forth the thrilling shout
Of thousands upon thousands! Put traitors to the rout!
So pure a cause should summon ev’ry brave and upright man,
Without regard to Party, to do whate’er he can
To aid in the insulted people, whom traitors seek to wrong,
And show that Truth and Justice make a Freeman’s right arm*******
strong!” W.J.G.
Note: “Niggers” is not the word he uses, which the many Whites in this era did, if not the majority. You can imagine the attitudes & words he heard around him constantly in camp. He also never uses “slaves” or “slavery.” On June 14, he will, however, write the time has come when the South needs a new race of people to cultivate the land and destroy the Selling of Humane Flesh from one state to another or person and I hope the Southern schivelry will soon be wiped out of Existence and men of pure motives settle the land where they can live in peace with their fellow men and may peace soon be restored to our land
Note: “Capt Huyett” is Ephraim’s hometown friend with who he bunked, & also the 110th Captain of Co. D. Huyett will testify before Edwin Stanton, et al, at the Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War June 21, 1862 about Doctor Hays, whom Ephraim worked directly under. Hays was brought up on abandonment charges when he deserted at Front Royal a trainload of injured soldiers fresh off General Shields’ battles (Cross Keys, June 8; Port Republic, June 9) so he could go drink champagne at the Willard Hotel (is how his actions were viewed by the Joint Committee, 37th Congress, at the time). One number for the total men on the trains I’ve seen is 280. But Hays knew he had 325 men total, which he stated in his June 20 testimony, because he had his steward count when the train came to D.C. There were 4 assistant surgeons besides Hays to care for the wounded men. Despite Hays having repeatedly telegraphed Washington that he was in-bound with hundreds of wounded men, President Lincoln orders Hays dismissed from the service for “shamefully neglecting them after their arrival.” It appears the order lasted two months, as Hays returned to service in his capacity as surgeon in August. See June 16 for the full story and court transcript where Dr. Hays defends his actions that night.
Arbaw notes in Army Life According to Arbaw: Civil War Letters of William A. Brand 66th Ohio Volunteer Infantry (Edited by Daniel A. Masters) P. 75, Footnote 110, “The incident drew widespread comment throughout the Midwest.” “Our Wounded Men in Washington,” Cleveland Morning Ledger, June 20, 1862, page 2. I have searched to no avail for the original to type up here.
Note: By 1765, nine-tenths of the slaves in VA. had been born in VA. The Portuguese started it all, their Pope. By 1630, ½ of Brazil’s population were African slaves; current estimate is that 4.9 million slaves from Africa were taken to Brazil between 1501-1866, with sugar the export.
*Manassas Gap: 887 feet above sea level in the Blue Ridge Mountains on the border of Fauquier County and Warren County in VA. See June 14.
**Ephraim’s not knowing the chest pain source would have been frightening.
***Sale: He refers to this March 14th.
****Ouch. Was she angry he went off to war? He is very much wanting her to write him, no matter the content. Also, he doesn’t discuss her in his entries unless noting whether he’s received letters from her, except at the very end of his diary with, “she does not look so harty as when I left Home.”
*****Likely the spies were dressed as Union soldiers in blue uniforms.
******Havelock: At first I thought this was a map, waterproofed in some way. A havelock is a cloth fixed onto a hat & it hangs down over a soldier’s sides of his face, & down over the sides of his neck & shoulders; it’s designed to stave off the effects of weather like rain & sun.
*******Strong abolitionist words.
Note: Letters per day Union soldiers wrote: 45k letters per day in the Eastern theatre, and about 90k letters in the Western theatre. Sometimes soldiers would erase a letter sent them so they could write on the same paper back to wherever the letter originated, or to someone else, of course.
For Cause and Comrades: Why Men Fought in the Civil War James M. McPherson P. 12
“Referring to diaries and letters, McPherson says, “Not only are there vastly more of them than for any previous war, but in contrast with twentieth-century wars, Civil War armies did not subject soldiers’ letters to censorship or discourage the keeping of diaries. Soldiers’ letters were therefore uniquely blunt and detailed about important matters that probably would not pass a censor: morale, relations between officers and men, details of marches and battles, politics and ideology and war aims, and other matters. This candor enables the historian to peer farther into the minds and souls of Civil War soldiers than of those in any other war.”
The Civil War Archive: The History of the Civil War in Documents Henry Steele Commager P. 34
“Everyman was, indeed, his own historian. A disproportionate body of the available material is, to be sure, from officers or from statesmen, these were the more articulate members of the population and those who could better arrange for the publication of what they wanted to say. But to a remarkable degree the privates kept records, and so too did the folks back home. Their reminiscences, recollections, and journals are to be found not in the handsomely published volumes from the great publishing houses, but in the pages of regimental histories, of state, local, and patriotic historical societies, of magazines that printed letters from veterans or from their families.”
The Union Soldier in Battle: Enduring the Ordeal of Combat Earl J. Hess P. xi
“…Billy Yank wrote voluminously of his experiences. Blessed with a high rate of literacy, unencumbered by military censorship, and fully aware that they were engaged in a larger-than-life endeavor that could change their country forever, the mass of Northern soldiers produced the most valuable collection of personal accounts ever used to document a phase of American history. A considered evaluation of what they had to say, shorn of modern prejudices, ideological faddishness, and a desire for political correctness, is the only proper way to understand the soldiers of the 1860s and to honor their suffering and their success.”
P. 95
“There are surviving letters, diaries, and memories from only a minority of Northern veterans. All one can do is identify the recurrent themes in these personal accounts and construct a multi-layered view of the varied ways in which their authors came to grips with the emotional challenges of battle.”
For Cause and Comrades: Why Men Fought in the Civil War James M. McPherson P. ix
“According to James McPherson, native-born soldiers from the middle and upper classes who enlisted early in the war were more likely to write letters and keep diaries and “their descendants were more likely to preserve them than were working-class, foreign-born, black, or slaveless soldiers.”
Nature’s Civil War: Common Soldiers and the Environment in 1862 Virginia Kathryn Shively Meier P. 11
“…it is, as usual, important to bear in mind the differences between eyewitness accounts and retrospectives. Memoirists did not always reflect their wartime experiences and attitudes accurately. Nineteenth-century Americans feared being labeled as cowardly or self-pitying, particularly by their families, who would be sure to read their memoirs.
P. 120
While letters served as personal supply lines, they were probably most useful for enhancing mental health. Correspondence fostered bravery and steadfastness in the face of environmental adversity, as no soldier wished to appear a coward to his family, and served as continual links to love and family care they remembered from home. The mournful Pvt. Gerald Fitzgerald put it simply: “I hardly know why I take my pen uninspired to write to you unless to provoke an answer for, as I suppose I must have often told you, letters are all I have.” A soldier may not have always been cognizant of why he picked up his pen, but once he began his letter, his spirits often lifted. Pvt. Lorenzo Pratt was consumed by homesickness in June in the Valley, but soon after he began writing he felt as though he were home again. “Dear Parantz: as I was sitting in my tent thinking about home and by gone days… but I have got no reason to complain.” As historian Karen Lystra has explained, Civil War soldiers “experienced certain letters as actual visits of” their correspondents. “When alone they kissed their love letters, carried them to bed, and even spoke to them.” Letters were physical talismans that loved ones had touched, providing comfort for soldiers’ darkest moments alone in their tents. Sgt. John S. Wiley confessed to his wife, “I hav felt so blue ever since [I received your last letter] I though I would not writ untill I felt in better sperrits you can not hav any idea to be placed as I am whare death is starring in our faces and not knowing when this cussed war will end.” He admitted his night terrors had become unbearable: “I get so worked up the other nights I could not sleep and grate drops of swett roles of from me.” In some cases, men merely wanted validation that their correspondents has some inkling of what they were enduring. Pvt. Henry H. Dedrick explained from the Valley in April, “We are nearly froze. All the balance of my mess is lying down in the tent wrapped up in there blankets. I wish you could see us, then you would say that we had hard times out here.” His wife replied, “I tell you Dear Henry my thoughts were fixed on you all them cold snowy days last week. I don’t know how you poor fellows can stand it. I know you all have a hard time out there in them cold cotton hats.'”
Note:
- Blood shed in this war: Civil War illustrations by Captain Adolph Metzner, 32nd Indiana / Michael A. Peake. Indianapolis : Indiana Historical Society Press, 2010, p. [99].
- Creator(s): Metzner, Adolph, artist
- Date Created/Published: [18]63.
- Medium: 1 drawing : watercolor ; sheet 22 x 31 cm.
- Summary: Drawing shows Adjutant General Carl Schmitt, Lieutenant Colonel William Mank and General August Willich’s orderly Brown traveling to Washington, D.C., to meet Willich, just released from Libby Prison in Richmond, Virginia. Men are shown carrying parole slips (source: Peake).
[Captured by Morgan’s cavalry at La Vergne, Tennessee, 1863]
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