Searchable Civil War Letters

I was taking a look at the new and improved website of the WMU Archives (which I'll describe in a later post) when I came upon their Civil War Letters collection (http://web.library.wmich.edu/digidb/cwc/). For anyone who wants to better understand the everyday life of the Civil War soldiers in their tree and even to read first-hand accounts of battles this is a great resource. There are eight diaries and twenty-nine letters in the collection, all held by the WMU Archives. Five of the men served in Michigan units, two in Ohio, one in Illinois and one worked for the U.S. Quartermaster Department. One was a musician and two were POWs.

Even better than merely having online access to these records, all of these diaries and letters have been transcribed and are searchable. The entries have also been categorized by topic as follows: battles, military units and maritime vessels, people, places, african americans, clothing, death and casualties, desertion, food, health and medicine, leisure, money, music, religion and transportation.

A brief biography of each man is also included. Briefly, they are:

Alonzo C. Ide (diary): 2nd MI Inf, Co C, also briefly served in 17th MI Inf, Co D

Augustas L. Yenner: 121st OH Inf, Co B, diary

Cyrus Thomas (diary): 49th OH Inf, Co E

Eli H. Page (diary): worked for the Quartermaster Department during the war (responsible for supplying the army)

Eugene R. Sly (diary): 100^th IL Inf, Co C

George Harrington (diary): 6^th MI Cavalry, Co L

Isaac S. Knapp (diary): 28^th MI Inf, Co I

Milton Sawyer (diary): 27^th MI Inf, Co G, musician

Samuel Hodgman (letters): 7^th MI Inf, Co I

If anyone out there has a relative who served in company I of the 7^th Michigan, you may want to do a search on the appropriate surname. In November of 1862 Hodgman provided an account (usually a sentence) describing where each soldier was according to his information.

I examined items in the collection using WMU's system, though it is also available through the University of Michigan. The document viewer is very similar to that now in use at Seeking Michigan. When viewing a particular page scroll down under the “description” heading to read the transcription of the page. At the top of the page is the page number. Use the slider to the right of the image to navigate to a different page in the diary/letter. The current page is highlighted.

This collection is a great asset for anyone wishing to better understand the lives of the Civil War soldiers in their tree. Journals and letters home, even if they aren't your ancestors' words can still provide context whether or not your soldier is mentioned by name.

For those who want to read more, I would recommend the book “For Country, Cause and Leader: The Civil War Journal of Charles B. Haydon,” by Stephen W. Sears. Haydon served in Company I of the 2nd Michigan Infantry and wrote in his journal almost daily for the first year of the war. He was also an officer so his experience was likely a little different in some respects from that of the typical enlisted man. To see my review of “For Country, Cause and Leader” go to:  Life in the Second Michigan Infantry.

Another place to find Civil War era letters is at Seeking Michigan in their Civil War Manuscripts collection.

Life in the Second Michigan Infantry

I recently finished reading the book “For Country, Cause, and Leader: The Civil War Journal of Charles B. Haydon,” by Stephen W. Sears. This book consists of the journal entries made by a young man (Charles B. Haydon) working his way up the ranks of the 2^nd Michigan Infantry during the Civil War. I picked up this book to better understand what my gg-grandfather, Edward Flynn, endured while he served in this regiment. In fact, my gg-grandfather served in the same company (Company I) with Haydon, until Haydon was transferred to Company E in the fall of 1862.

Company I of the 2^nd Michigan began as the Kalamazoo Light Guard. Haydon and Flynn were not in the Light Guard, but both enlisted on April 22, 1861, a week after Lincoln's call for 75,000 volunteers. The Kalamazoo Light Guard, with additional recruits, was accepted into the regiment as Company I.

Haydon worked as a law clerk in Kalamazoo before his enlistment, making him much more educated than the average soldier. He began the war as a third sergeant and diligently worked his way up to the rank of Lt. Colonel before his death from illness in the spring of 1864. In the early days of the conflict he wrote in his journal virtually every day. Toward the end, his entries were more infrequent, but still provide the reader with a picture of his life.

Haydon described the daily living conditions that he and his fellow soldiers endured. In steamy summers they slogged through the Virginia mud. The mud was probably one reason that no fence was safe from the soldiers. Fences were quickly dismantled and the boards used to avoid sleeping on the bare ground. They purchased supplemental food from locals and picked wild blackberries whenever they were in season for miles around camp. During the icy winter of 1863-1864 in Tennessee they marched with no socks and only a handful of boots between them. Their battered tents didn't do much to keep out the elements at night. It didn't help that rations were scarce and some days they had only coffee and a little hard tack all day.

Through Hayden's eyes we can picture the countryside they marched through. On some occasions, Haydon's descriptions were almost poetic.

Haydon also shared his opinions of his fellow soldiers as well as the higher commanders. I didn't find any mention of my gg-grandfather for good or ill. Being in the same company, Haydon certainly would have known who he was. While finding a reference to him would have been exciting I would rather have found nothing than find he was one of the men who tried to desert or was put in the guard house for some other infraction.

It was interesting to watch Haydon settle into a soldier's life rather easily. Despite the discomforts and even hardship they experienced, Haydon at least, grew to enjoy the life and when away from the regiment (and not at home) would rather have been with his comrades than elsewhere.

Naturally, Haydon described the engagements his regiment was involved in. There are no maps included in the book so if you are like me you will want to have a book of state maps, or even better, Civil War battlefield maps handy so you can “see” what Haydon was talking about. One thing I found interesting was that despite the number of battles the Second Michigan was engaged in, in many cases the regiment as a whole (or sometimes company I in particular) was held in reserve, covered the retreat or was in an area of the battlefield that did not see much action. So, at least during the period covered by Haydon's journal, not including when he was recuperating from being wounded, Company I did not see the worst of the fighting. This certainly may have changed after Haydon's death, but as of this writing I haven't had a chance to look into it.

If you have an ancestor who served in the Second Michigan I would highly recommend reading this book. Even if you didn't have a relative who served in this regiment this book will provide a true sense of what daily life was like for many Union troops. The Kalamazoo Public Library has two copies, one in the circulating library and one in the local history room.

Really doing genealogy, at least for me, is so much more than simply plugging another name into my family tree software.  I want to learn about the lives of my relatives.  Reading this book has allowed me to better understand at least a little of what life was like for all of the Civil War soldiers in my family. If you don't want to buy or borrow this book you can read some Civil War era letters online through the WMU archives  website.