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Letters From Others May Mention Ancestors

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By SHARON TATE MOODY

Tribune correspondent

Published: August 17, 2008

All five of my Civil War ancestors were poor, illiterate dirt farmers. Some knew how to scribble their names and others made an "X" when a signature was needed. Not one of them could write a letter home to be treasured and passed down.

So I collect letters and journals written by other folks' more-educated ancestors.

Although many official records were lost or intentionally destroyed by both sides in the war, many families back home somehow managed to save letters from the battlefields.

During the past few decades, hundreds of descendants have compiled their family letters or journals of this war and published them. Many line my bookcases, although none of them mention my ancestors.

If my ancestor and your ancestor fought in the same company and regiment, chances are they knew each other. I "met" Samuel Burney, who joined Cobb's Georgia Legion to fight for the Confederacy, when I researched his family for a client. He wrote home to his wife, giving her news of fellow soldiers who she knew because they were "the boys" from back home.

In May 1863, he wrote to her that he had been wounded in the Battle of Chancellorsville. He told her the company suffered much in the fight and then specified "Pierce had been slightly wounded and that Jim Johnson & Harris had been killed and Parker had his left leg cut off."

So when you find a book written by someone in your ancestor's regiment, check the index: Your ancestor just might be mentioned in a letter.

But men fighting together experienced and felt many of the same things. When you find a book of letters or journals, don't just look for your ancestor's name. Read it for the content about life in general.

On May 25, 1862, in another letter to his wife, Burney wrote from Virginia: "last night we slept in a swamp - the mosquitoes & gnats playing havoc with our hands & faces." Samuel's unnamed fellow soldiers shared the misery those insects wrought, and their descendants can appreciate the detail as much as Samuel's can.

Burney's letters described battles, camp life, and day-to-day dreariness of the army. His family treasured the letters and preserved them for three generations. One of his great-grandsons, Nat Turner, edited and published the letters in 2002, titled "A Southern Soldier's Letters Home."

Letters such as those can provide information, specific and general, to liven up your family history even if your soldier did not write letters.

In addition to letters that have been published in books, researchers can find many transcribed and digitally reproduced on the Internet.

Here are a few ways to locate published letter collections:

•Place specific but basic terms in an Internet search engine; for example, "Civil War Letters Pennsylvania" or "Civil War journals Georgia."

•Visit bookstores in local museums or battlefield parks. In a visit to the Atlanta History Museum I found many published letter compilations.

•Check offerings by college presses in the states that interest you. I found that Mercer University Press in Macon, Ga., has an outstanding track record of publishing Civil War letters and journals of Georgia soldiers.

•Don't overlook unpublished letters and journals. Rather than publish, families often deposit their collections with university libraries or state archives. Some of the collections can be seen on the Internet.

Next week, we'll look at the Official Records of the American Civil War.

Write to Sharon Tate Moody in care of The Tampa Tribune, 200 S. Parker St., Tampa FL 33606; or e-mail stmoody 0720@mac.com.

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