[COLLECTION OF SIXTEEN LETTERS FROM UNION INFANTRY PRIVATE AUBERT E. HUMISTON WRITTEN TO FAMILY MEMBERS WHILE SERVING IN COMPANY K OF THE 81st OHIO INFANTRY WITH CONTENT OF ENGAGEMENTS DURING THE ATLANTA CAMPAIGN].

[Civil War]: Humiston, Aubert E.:

Edité par [Various locations, including Illinois, Mississippi, Tennessee, Georgia and Kentucky. October 1862 – June 1865].

An engaging collection of Civil War letters from an eighteen-year-old Union private, Aubert E. Humiston of Galion, Ohio, to various members of his family, written during the time he served in Company K of the 81st Ohio Infantry in the Army of the Tennessee during the Atlanta Campaign. Humiston records his initial impressions as a raw recruit seeing African-American Confederate prisoners being sent to Chicago, tells of a duty station near Pulaski, Tennessee, where he helped to run a steam-powered saw and grist mill, and describes his manner of living while stationed in Tennessee, including a pencil sketch of his small barracks. Humiston's letters change dramatically when the 81st Ohio becomes an active part of Sherman's Atlanta campaign, and become filled with descriptions of the battles he has seen, including Resaca and the Battle of Dallas. He later describes his recovery from serious illness in a hospital in Kingston, Georgia, and vents his anger and frustration with the Union Army in not mustering out the 81st Ohio more quickly when the war ended. The first letter of the collection, written from Cairo, Illinois, in October of 1862, Humiston writes to his father about Rebel troops they encounter: "We are all well and shall not stay hear only until this evening when we shall go on our way to Corinth [Mississippi]. There is a great many secesh prisoners in this place, most of them being negrows but they tell me that there is not half so many heare now as there was a few days ago they were sent to Chicago." Early in the new year of 1863, Humiston writes from Corinth of a trip sixteen miles away to Burnsville to pick up wood to build a breastwork a month past, showing some knowledge of the industry: "On the 9th day of Dec we were ordered on a march to a sawmill about twenty-five miles east or Corinth. This ecurcion trip was to get lumber to build breastworks.& occupied two days, one to go & one to cum in, we took 60 six horse teams and 500 men…we reached the mill about eight in the evening, having lost our way twice…in the morning we loaded the wagons & started back for camp." The lumber was the best quality pine, there being 140,000 feet at the mill. Humiston writes to his sister, Emma, in February of 1863 and tells her of life in camp: "We have plenty to eat concisting of beens, rice, pork, coffee, shugar, tea, both green and black, and some times fresh beef. Coffee we have a great plenty of also tea, pilot-bread & soft-bread & sometimes molasis. This consists of our eatables & along with this we have the nicest & most comfortable quarters in the 81st regt, we have had the very best kind of times every since I entered the armey & there is but very few regiments in the field that can say the same." He goes on to say that they had very hard work in exchange for those rations and quarters: "…every day when it is good wether we are on drill & preparing our selves so that if we are called upon to go into battle that we will not be like a lot of greenhorns or nonothings." Late October 1863 finds young Aubert and the 81st Ohio in Pocahontas, Tennessee, where he writes to his mother of preparations for winter: "We have been very busy moving camp for over a week & have not got quite fixed up yet but think we shall have pretty good winter quarters after we get settled down.Should you take a notion to send me a box this fall, I will tell you what I want sent. Some butter, some of H Ducks good old cheese, some dried apples & peaches, & a good bottle of brandy or burbon whiskey & just what else you are a mind to." Private Humiston ends his letter with a pencil drawing of his newly built barracks, proudly writing under it: "My little Home in the armey of the Tennesee way down in Pocahontas." The 81st Ohio then marches down to Pulaski, Tennessee in preparation for the Atlanta campaign. Humiston is given duty at Sam's Mill nearby, and writes to his mother of his work there: "Our company & co are stationed at Samuels saw & grist mill, which. N° de réf. du vendeur 66625

Détails bibliographiques

Titre : [COLLECTION OF SIXTEEN LETTERS FROM UNION ...
Éditeur : [Various locations, including Illinois, Mississippi, Tennessee, Georgia and Kentucky. October 1862 June 1865].