The Emotional Importance of Hair

Vicki Betts, a librarian at the University of Texas at Tyler, is one of the great folks that I have “met” thanks to this blog. She recently sent me a link to a webpage that has transcriptions of three letters written by Hugh Brothers of the 19^th Arkansas Infantry. Mr. Brothers’ letters, placed online by Bobby J. Wadsworth, contain delightful spelling and a colorful way of conveying news. The letters document an outbreak of measles at Fort McCulloch in the Choctaw Nation of the Indian Territory, but perhaps the most interesting sections deal with his request for his wife to send him braids of her hair. She complied with his request, and his comments about the significance of her hair are touching. See what you think! Brothers was among those who surrendered at Arkansas Post in January 1863; sadly, he died of smallpox at Camp Douglas, Illinois in March 1863.

"times are hard here and a fair prospect of being worse[.]"

Vicki Betts, a librarian at the University of Texas at Tyler, has worked extensively with the Confederate Citizens records that are available through Footnote.com. Last week, she sent me her transcription of the letter below written by Henry Bass of Arkansas to his brother and gave me permission to post it on my blog. The letter documents how guerrilla activities destabilized southern society and hurt loyalty for the Confederate cause. Interestingly, Dr. Daniel E. Sutherland makes the same basic point in his important book, A Savage Conflict: The Decisive Role Of Guerrillas In The American Civil War (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2009).

Lake Enterprise Ark. March the 29^th 1863

Dear Brother

I received your kind letter in February and was very glad to hear from you all again[.] I would have writen to you before now but the mal is stoped crossing the river[.] I have a chance of sending this across by hand my health has improved a great deal since I wrote to you though I am not well yet[.] I have no strength and the least exposure make me sick[.] times are hard here and a fair prospect of being worse[.] the Federals are on the Mason Hills within fiften miles of us and will be here as soon as the water gets out of Beof river bottom which will be about June[.] there has been a great many negroes Brought in here from the river and the fedrel troops say they are coming after them as soon as the waters fall and there is nothing to hinder them from coming[.] we have no troops in the country and I hope will not have for if we had we would [have] two evils instead of one and my experience is that the southron troops injures a country as bad as the federals[.] the only differece is the Southerons take all that people has to live on and then Burns the cotton when they here of yankees coming and is taken with a leaving but they leave the negroes and the yankees comalong and find nothing els and they locate on Mr niger and so it goe[.] I have been a close observer of passing events since this war Broke out and have become disgusted withe the whhole concen under the title of Confederate States from the venerable head down but it will soon be over with and then I am afraid our country will suffer from jahawkers than we have from honerable war for we have plenty of men that have no honer and they only want an opportunity to rob and plunder and will be strend [?] by the absence of law[.] I have heard plenty of men say in the army if the south faild that they would jahawk as long as they lived and men of that class dont care who they rob

I think if I remain at home I will be over to se you in the summer when I can come through the swamp if I do not I will come as soon as the war is over[.] we have had a very wet cold Spring there is nothing planted here yet[.] I have all my corn land ready to plant and will plant this week[.] we had a severe storm last night and is very cold to day

So far we have plenty to live on corn is worth a dollar Bacon 30 cts Sugar 35 cts flour $80 per bbl coffee none Salt is worth $2.50 one hundred miles from here at the Salt works it has sold there as high as ten doller per bushel write to me and it may get here some time

Yor Brother Henry Bass

More Revival News!

Vicki Betts kindly sent me this week a newspaper article that she transcribed about missionary work in Walker’s Texas Division in the summer of 1864. It fits so well with my last posting, that with her permission I have posted the article:

GALVESTON WEEKLY NEWS, August 8, 1864, p. 1, c. 2

Walker's Division, Waterhouse's Brigade,
17th Regt. Inf. Camp Fiacon, La., July 12, '64.

Ed. News.—I desire, through the columns of your invaluable paper, to convey to our friends, some information of our "whereabouts," health and condition.

At present this brigade is in camp on Bayou Fiacan, about 15 miles East of Alexandria. Our time is principally occupied in drilling, grumbling about poor beef and furloughs. The general health of the troops is very good, better than it has been for several months, but they are poorly clad, many of them are without necessary articles of raiment, others have on their only suit. To remedy this, several officers from the different brigades have been detailed to go to Texas to procure clothing, with what success is yet to be seen. But probably the most important item of news with us at this time, is a revival of religion now in progress under the supervision of Elder W. A. Mason, Missionary to the army from the Baptist State Convention. He arrived in this brigade about the 4th May last, and was welcomed by a hearty reception from the soldiers. Since that time he has been laboring night and day with much zeal and fervency, doing much good, and receiving many souls for his hire. The meeting has been progressing several weeks, and some twenty five or thirty have confessed and put on Christ in Baptism.

Elder Mason has also organized the "Christian Association of Waterhouse's Brigade," composed of the members of the different denominations, who, laying aside all sectarian prejudices, have convened at the altar to worship God, and do all they can for the promotion of the much neglected cause of Christ. Committees are appointed from the different regiments, whose duties are to visit the sick and procure every possible comfort for them. Its works, up to this time, promise much good.

Elder Mason has had no assistance whatever, indeed, the soldiers have been much neglected, there having been only one chaplain in the brigade—Elder Hay, who has no superior as a chaplain. He has been promoted to the rank of Brigade Chaplain for his gallantry on the field at the late battles, and for his attention to and efforts in behalf of the sick and wounded. He is now absent trying to procure clothing for his old regiment, the 16th.

Elder Mason is, by resolution of our association, an authorized agent to procure religious literature for the army, which is very much needed and desired. Any one having pocket Testaments, hymn books, or any other benefit for the sick and wounded, which they can spare, and wish to contribute, will confer much good, and for which many soldiers will thank them, by sending them to Elder Mason, who will soon return to Texas for the purpose above named, and to attend the Baptist State Convention.

Most respectfully, I remain your obd't serv't,
B., Co. A, 17th Regt. Inft.

Dateline: Little Rock, Arkansas: February 1, 1863

Vicki Betts recently sent me an email about a letter that she discovered in the Confederate Citizens collection that is available on Footnote.com. After reading her transcription of a portion of the letter, I asked her permission to post the excerpt on my blog. Vicki graciously agreed, and what follows is an excerpt from a letter written by Philip L. Anthony to Honorable Robert W. Johnson, an Arkansas congressman. The letter was written somewhere near Little Rock on 1 February 1863; as Vicki pointed out in her email to me the letter is a good illustration of the expression “with friends like these, who needs enemies?”

“One thing more:

From all I can see & learn whenever the army is near a town, the officers, high & low desert the camps & crowd the hotels, boarding houses & even private homes, (if they can get in,) leaving the soldiers almost without restraint, who commit many depredations on private property, & live in all sorts of filth & nastiness, often easing themselves within a few feet of where they eat & sleep. One consequence is that the hospitals are crowded with sick. When on the march soldiers are permitted to straggle along the roads for miles & to turn off the highways. They generally have a story that they have been left behind sick, & are either begging their way or paying their expenses out of their pay, & if their demands are not complied with, be they ever so unreasonable, they generally do some ill-natured trick in retaliation. There are instances in my own knowledge where they have killed numbers of hogs near their camps, burned up the rails around the wheat fields of poor widows & others, & one soldier told me he had seen the last hog of a poor widow killed by the soldiers. I should think that a law of congress requiring the officers to lay in camps at all places & holding them responsible for the conduct of soldiers would be salutary.”

A Footnote.com Veteran Writes

I received the comment below from one of my blog readers, and I thought it was deserving of inclusion in a regular blog posting. So, with the permission of the writer here is a first-hand account from a true Footnote.com veteran:

“Hello! My name is Vicki, and I'm a Footnote.com addict!

I've been a full member working in several Confederate files for about two years, and I've racked up over 120,000 annotations, or indexing entries, mostly in documents related to Texas although I've ventured off into Indian Territory, SW Arkansas, and western Louisiana at times. I started in the Citizens and Business File, moved over into Confederate Officers, and am currently in Confederate--CSA--Service records of Confederate soldiers who served in organizations raised directly by the Confederate government, such as the Engineers, Nitre and Mining Bureau, Sappers and Miners, and Signal Corps. I'm just finishing up the file for Caleb G. Forshey, 286 images. A West Point grad, before the war he was superintendent of Texas Military Institute at Rutersville--his letterhead paper in Footnote.com has two engravings of TMI. During the war he was "consulting engineer" for Magruder planning coastal defenses. His file not only includes detailed descriptive plans for the Fort Esperanza area, but also hand drawn maps for the area from Caney Creek to the Brazos, the mouth of the San Bernard River, the camps on the west side of the Brazos near the coast, the Sabine at Gaines Ferry, and the Sabine from Williamson Ferry down past Carter's Ferry. His correspondence documents his temper tantrums and his colleagues lack of confidence in him at times. Included is a report on the iron ore regions of East Texas, written by M. L. Parry, who wanted to set up foundries in Liberty and in Anderson County, a Cass(Davis) county foundry already being operational. And all of this I found by accident, since Caleb Forshey's file is actually under the name of Augustus Forsberg!

I don't think this indexing process will ever be complete--there are just too many documents and too many names, even for the Trans-Miss, and there are the serendipity moments like with Forshey. One name leads to another and another. It it truly one of the most amazing sources I've ever seen for Civil War researchers, paired with the free online searchable OR. I'm constantly amazed at how much paperwork survived, and dismayed at how much evidently didn't. (Did they have a bonfire at Bonham of much of the Northern Subdistrict paperwork at the end of the war, or what?) But beware! You will become addicted, and find yourself constantly on the lookout for "the next neat thing," wondering how long it has been since anyone has every looked at this particular document.

Vicki Betts
University of Texas at Tyler Library

P. S. I just remembered another favorite find from the correspondence of Udolpho Wolfe, quartermaster in Victoria, Texas, March 31, 1862:

‘The Influence of the ‘Almighty Dollar’ in time of War, as well as in times of peace seems proof against loyalty or patriotism. Where the money is, there will be found the seller, and where it is not[,] patriotism may solicit in vain.’”

My Wish List

This may come as a shock to some of you, but I have been a long time subscriber of The Gettysburg Magazine. I rarely get behind reading this magazine since it only is published twice a year. In a recent issue, editor Andy Turner advertised a forthcoming publication titled the Gettysburg Campaign Atlas and done by the magazine’s cartographer, Philip Laino. Now, I am a sucker for atlases and decided that I could afford the $34.00 pre-publication price. The atlas arrived in the mail this week. It is a large spiral-bound tome that contains 421 maps depicting the entire campaign. My initial reaction is that it is an impressive accomplishment, but I admit to some irritation after looking at the book. Why don’t scholars devote more attention to the trans-Mississippi? And that leads neatly to the comment that Vicki Betts posted earlier this evening. She asked what works I would like to see published on the trans-Mississippi, and what follows is my wish list as of right now.

The following is in no particular order:

How about an atlas on the Red River Campaign? I think that seeing 421 well-done maps on that campaign, or even 221 maps would be quite a treat.

And speaking of atlases, how about an atlas devoted just to actions in the trans-Mississippi? Don’t you get tired of Civil War atlases whose western boundary is the eastern part of the Indian Territory or worse yet, Arkansas?

Logistics were of supreme importance in the trans-Mississippi. I want to know all about the movement of supplies to and from Fort Scott, Kansas. And how were Confederate forces sustained? In Dr. Shea’s recent book about the Prairie Grove campaign he states, “Contrary to myth, the trans-Mississippi Confederacy received few manufactured goods by way of blockade-running in the western Gulf of Mexico. Nearly all factory-made items, whether firearms from Britain or footwear from Georgia, reached Arkansas via the railhead and waterfront at Vicksburg. As the war progressed, however, the presence of Union gunboats on the Mississippi severed the direct connection between Vicksburg and Little Rock. The Confederates established an indirect connection through Louisiana via the Ouachita River, but the route was longer, slower, and less reliable. By the fall of 1862 the arrival of any shipment from the eastern Confederacy was cause for celebration in Arkansas and the Indian Territory” (p. 82). I’d like to see a scholarly study on logistics and the trans-Mississippi Confederacy; what supply routes were developed? How were they sustained? What supplies actually reached Confederate troops?

Have you noticed that almost every book on the trans-Mississippi highlights civilians in some way? Civilians provided supplies (whether willingly or unwillingly), and they often were caught up in guerrilla warfare as well as the struggle between the armies. Many became refugees. More scholarly studies on their plight as well as their importance would be useful.

I’m beginning to sense that I could go on and on… For now, I will just mention one more wish list item. I am waiting for a scholarly study of the war on the Pacific Coast. My impression is that some fascinating events occurred along the Pacific Coast during the war, particularly in California.

What would you like to see added to the list?

And thank you, Vicki, for suggesting the topic of this posting!