Letters from the Civil War |
| I would like to share a letter that my great-grandfather wrote to my
great-grandmother during the Civil War in 1863. The following was written on military stationery by my great-grandfather, JOHN SELLERS, to his future wife, CHARLOTTE CASH, while serving in the Civil War. He had enlisted at the age of twenty in July 1861 and served with, Company "D", Fourth Regiment, Iowa Volunteers,. Infantry. They were married on 12 December 1864 in Decatur county after his return from the war in September of that year. HEAD QUARTERS, Co. D, Fourth Regiment Iowa Vol. Inft. Camp, at Corinth, Miss, Oct the 2nd, 1863 Charlotte Cash Dear friend I take my pen in hand to write you a few lines in answer to yours of Sept the 18th whitch I received last eavning and was truley glad to hear that you was well. This leaves me well and I hope that it ma soon find you and find you enjoying the same feleing. We hase moved since I written to you last an are at Corinth Miss at the present at bout five hundred miles from vicksburg the way that we come an expect to goe to Chatenuga from hear in a few days that is about one hundred and fifty miles distanse from this plase, I guess that thar will be no chance for me to get a furlo to come home this fall but it wont be more than about ten months til I can come home to stay and I am making all calculations on getting maried as soon as I get home, you said that if I thought as mutch of you as you did of me that there would be no truble with us. I asure you that I love you as dearly as my own life, and for the dress I will send you the money and let you by it your self and pick one to suit your self and then you can have it made to order against I get home. Tell me in the next leter how mutch it will take and I will send it to you. Well I can’t think of mutch to write at present we have no late news of importanse so I will close for the present. I asking you to write soon, with pleasure I remans your most sincer friend. John Selers I have been told that John was illiterate and that he had a friend write this letter for him. Charlotte could read and write and she wrote letters for the wives and girl friends to send to the loved ones while serving in the war. Contributed by Darrell Eckardt, great-grandson of John and Charlotte. "This letter was passed on to my by my grandmother, Gertrude Sellars, when I visited her in the late 1940's or early 1950's. |
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Leon Reporter, Leon, Iowa The following letter received by Postmater Ledgerwood is of interest to our Grand Army friends in recalling old times: Bethel, Shelby Co., Mo. Excuse me for thus addressing a stranger, as I write this for information. The first part of December, l864, I was captured in Decatur County with 8 others. Capt. Joe Weldon, Andrew Thompson, George Fry, Enoch and Thomas Fry, Calvin Birge, Lou Phillips and Frank Brown. We were kindly treated by the Iowa troops, Colonel Burton having us in charge. I would like to know whether any of those men that captured us live in your county or not, and if so I would like to hear from them. Those boys, all except myself, remained in prison until after the war closed. I was the only boy in the crowd and they did not watch me very close. If you can give me any information please let me know. --MATTHEW MCCLUE or MCCUE. Copied by Nancee(McMurtrey)Seifert |
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