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CIVIL WAR ARCHIVE OF CORPORAL ERASTUS WINTERS, 50TH O.V.I.,
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CIVIL WAR ARCHIVE OF CORPORAL ERASTUS WINTERS, 50TH O.V.I.,
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54 war-date letters, 12 books and pamphlets, 2 scrapbooks, ephemera and regalia. Organized in response to Lincoln’s August 1862 call for troops, the 50th Ohio Infantry saw hard service in the Western theatre of the Civil War, losing over 200 men to battle and disease during their campaigns in Kentucky and Tennessee, Atlanta, Franklin and Nashville, and the Carolinas. An intelligent, level-headed young man, Erastus Winters was a typical recruit to the 50th who, like so many of his comrades, saw the elephant first hand. His toughness, however, may have been more severely tested than most. After barely surviving several months in the dire prisons of the Confederacy, Winters barely survived one of the nation’s greatest ship disasters. After mustering in at Camp Dennison, the 50th was rushed within days to Louisville, where they were expected to help counter the Confederate invasion of Ohio. It must have been a whirlwind for them. Barely a month after arriving in Kentucky, the regiment entered its first major engagement. Winters wrote his brother and sister a nice 4pp letter describing the fiercely fought Battle of Perryville during which the regiment sustained 165 casualties. Winters writes Well it was one of the hotest places I ever was in yet I got out safe. I was not hurt but all that went in did not come out so fortunate for many, very many bit the dust of Mother Earth that day. The shot and shell fell thick and fast around me but none of them touched me… He also wrote a 2pp letter to his parents after the battle, adding a fascinating detail: Our Coronel run and we don’t know where he is, but we stood our ground… For a year and a half after Perryville, the 50th was stationed at various places in Kentucky and Tennessee, performing guard duty and unglamorous, but important, tasks such as building fortifications and bridges. In May 1864, however, the 50th moved forward as part of William Tecumseh Sherman’s juggernaut. During the Atlanta Campaign, the 50th occupied a place in the lines that kept them out of the worst fighting, but they witnessed plenty nonetheless. The 10 letters written by Winters during the campaign give a brilliant sense of what it must have been like to be part of such a huge and inexorable army, and he describes a number of skirmishes and small engagements in which he participated, while keeping his attention on the larger view of the movement of the army. His first letter from the campaign is a fine 4pp account of the operations near Dallas, Ga.: The rebels charged on our works drove in our skirmishers in front of our regiment and came on within 50 yards of our breast works and we opened a whole volley on them and drove them back. Co K was then ordered to deploy as skirmishers and drive them to their holes which we did with a yell. We repulsed them hansomely and drove them clear to their works… Much more. The Battle of Atlanta elicited some frightening accounts from Winters, though he showed his cool under even the most worrisome pressure. The enemy, he wrote massed all their forces in front of the 15, 16 and 17 corps and charged them and drove them back and for a while the fortunes of the day went against us. In fact they flanked our forces and turned our left as far back as Decatur but finally our forces relayed and drove them back having an open field fight with them. Their loss is said to be 8000 ours 5000… it was a pretty dirty fight but one the rebs will long remember. They loss was very very heavy… As the letters progress, the mood improves further, and Winters discusses talking to rebel deserters (though he complains rebel officers have forbidden their soldiers from conversing with the Yanks), and he provides interesting accounts of the part of the 50th during the siege of Atlanta, including the tragic death of one of the regiment’s beloved officers. As September arrived, Winters became increasingly aware of the brilliance of Sherman’s strategy and seemed to conclude that the Union army could not be stopped. From Lovejoy Station, he wrote: I can tell you no particulars farther than General Sherman swung his whole army round toward the Macon RR. It was a movement which completely took Old Hood by surprise, he was perfectly non plus… Much more regarding Sherman’s strategy, rumors of Longstreet coming to Georgia, and their prospects for the future. Later that month, having fallen back to Decatur, Ga., Winters writes of seeing Atlanta itself and the savage scars left by the conflict: I must say I never saw a town so completely used up by shells since I came out. I don’t believe there is a house in town but what has a shell or a piece of shell through it. What citizens were left had holes dug in the ground to take refuge in while we were shelling… As to Hoods retreat I must say that we pushed him very close so close that they throwed away lots of Bake ovens and corn meal any amount of it, wagons ambulances and stretchers lay scattered all along the road between here and Lovejoy station besides other things that they could not get away… our Corps passed several Rebble Hospitals on the way and to tell the truth they was a Hard Sight to look on. Men lay scattered around James bourough all through the woods. Some dead, some dieing some with their arms and legs cut off and laying there by their side. Here you could see two or three Toes then two or three fingers and there they all lay without any shelter except the blue canopy of Heaven… Then came Franklin. The Battle of Franklin is remembered as the `western Gettysburg,` a critical engagement that crushed Confederate resolve, but Winters’ experience there was rather more unusual: he was taken prisoner (more on that to follow) and held in the notorious Cahaba Prison in Alabama. Unfortunately, the collection contains no letters actually written from prison – if they ever made it out of Alabama, they appear not to have been received by his family – but Winters’ correspondence renews in March 1865, when he was finally released. That month, Winters wrote two long letters home describing his removal from one prison to another to keep away from the advancing Union army and a description of the hardships of Cahaba Prison. In one, he writes I have seen some of the hardest times I have ever experienced but thanks be to God I weathered it through and was Brought through the lines yesterday at Big Black River… I will just say here I was captured at Franklin Tennessee on the 30th of November. I was marched from there to Cherokee Station Alabama there we took the cars and went to Meridian Mississippi where we was kept about one month from there we took the cars and went to Cahaba Alabama… Unfortunately, Winters’ ordeal was not over. He was among the unfortunate soldiers sent home aboard the Sultana in March 1865, an overburdened paddlewheel steamship whose boiler exploded, resulting in over 1,700 lives lost. One of the greatest maritime disasters in American history, the Sultana was even more poignant given that many of the passengers on its crowded decks – Winters among them -- were prisoners of war recently released from the worst of Confederate prison camps. Winters wrote a remarkable 4pp. letter home describing the event, in part: I came very near my death as I suppose you will know before this time perhaps you think I am lost unless you saw my name in the papers among the survivors… I could not [describe] it even if I could try such awful scenes as passed before my eyes there it would be impossible for me to describe. At the time the boat blew up I was asleep on the cabin deck but when I came to wake up I found myself on the lower desk & then went out on the Bow of the Boat and helped through [i.e. throw] the gang plank out and get on it and drifted to land after being ducked about 15 times while hundreds of my comrades were lost... I made my escape from what was to many a watery grave.... There was 35 of the 50 [OVI] boys on board and this far I do not know of only 10 that made their escape. I think this ought to wake me up to a sense of my duty.... Winters himself was seriously burned and spent some time under medical care in Christian Commission rooms in Memphis. He wrote twice from there to say that he had been authorized to return home – by rail, not boat. After the war, Winters was active for many years in veterans’ organizations, becoming (as two certificates attest) aide de camp to his local GAR post, and attending reunions of his regiment, the GAR, the Sultana Survivors Association, and the Union ex-Prisoners Association. He was prone, too, to writing about his experiences for his comrades, and the collection includes several samples of his work (see also the scrapbook described below). There are two particularly noteworthy essays: a 25-page account of the Wreck of Steamer Sultana, dated 1917, and 36-page memoir of the Battle of Franklin written for the National Tribune, a veterans’ publication. There is a separate 2-page `romance` (a memoir nonetheless) involving the Sultana and a list of the members of Co. K and field and staff officers of the 50th OVI. The Franklin memoir is an extraordinary example of writing from an otherwise little known veteran attempting to come to grips with the fear, confusion, and bloodshed of the battlefield. In describing the paralysis felt at seeing a mass of soldiers, Union and Confederate mingled, not being able to shoot for fear of hitting his own, Winters writes: I have read a great many descriptions by both Union and Confederate writers who have tried to describe as it appeared to them as the enemy charged across what may be called the field of death but all have failed to show it up as it was. There is no words in the English language that will fitingly describe it – it is painted on the canvas of the memories of those who saw it and stands out in bold relief but no eye witness I care not how clever he may be with the pen can do it justice on paper… What follows is a remarkably vivid and personal account of being captured after a Confederate charge and then being pinned between the armies, taking cover behind the bleeding body of a fallen Confederate officer, as the armies fought on. At night, he writes, I could hear the balls striking the dead and wounded all around with that dull thud that all Old Soldiers can remember so well. I shall never forget while I live the dismal hum of the leaden messengers as they passed over my head as I lay there beside that wounded captain… The writing is so strong and the experience so exceptional that to recognize Winters’ is a unique account of the Battle of Franklin is to put it mildly. Also worth noting is an 11-page letter from a comrade, G.W. Nash, 1911, of the 1st Michigan Light Artillery, recounting his experiences capturing a guerrilla leader in 1862, getting captured himself at Richmond, Ky., and later fighting in the bitter winter of 1863-1864 and the Atlanta campaigns. Nash includes a humorous account of how he was given the honor of firing the first Union shot into the city of Atlanta. The Winters collection includes one highly unusual feature: Winters’ personal library relating to his Civil War experiences. Most notable is the original typescript of Winters’ privately-published personal memoir of his experiences, In the 50th Ohio Serving Uncle Sam, along with a very good copy of the published book (East Walnut Hills, Ohio, 1905). Although Winters’ memoir is noted in bibliographies of regimental histories, it was printed in a small run and is rarely seen on the market, particularly in a copy as nice as this one (and Winters’ personal copy, to boot). Noteworthy among the other books owned by Winters is an excellent example of Chester Berry’s well known history of the Sultana disaster and a lovely, slightly tattered salesman’s sample of J.T. Headley’s popular history of the war. • Chester P. Berry, Loss of the Sultana and Reminiscences of the Survivors. (Lansing, 1892). Good+, newspaper clippings pasted inside rear end board. • J.T. Headley, The Great Rebellion. (Hartford, 1862). SALESMAN’S SAMPLE • John McElroy, Andersonville: A Story of Rebel Military Prisons. (Toledo, 1879). Fair reading copy. • Luther W. Minnigh, Gettysburg: What They Did Here. (1892). First printing, in wraps, lacking front wrap. • National Tribune Repository, vol. 1, no. 4. (n.d.) • National Tribune Scrap Book Number 3. `Stories of the Camp, March, Battle, Hospital, and Prison Told by Comrades.` (Washington, D.C., n.d.) • Theodore Strickler, When and Where We Met Each Other On Shore and Afloat. (Washington, D.C., 1899). In wraps, as issued, covers and title page detached and chipped. Fair. The ephemera in the Winters collection is remarkably diverse, ranging from a handkerchief to an 1856 seated liberty dime (punched with a hole for a chain); three pamphlets from veterans’ organizations (Report of the 8th Annual Reunion of the 50th OVI, 1895; Official Programme and General Information of 53th National Encampment, GAR, 1919; and most importantly, By-Laws of US Grant Post GAR, No. 340, 1883); a prospectus for N.P. Chipman’s The Tragedy of Andersonville; a set of brass GAR buttons in different sizes (approx. 20); a photographic locket with tintype picture and lock of hair (photo is probably Winters, broken at hinge), and a promotional map for the GAR encampment at Chattanooga, 1913. The collection includes an additional five photographs, two war-date cartes of identified comrades not in uniform, a much later post-war photo of a former P.O.W., a copy of a scarce, damaged photo of Gen. Silas Strickland on his iron gray horse, and a photographic stick pin. The ephemeral highlight, however, is the impressive and diverse set of reunion ribbons and medallion, as follows: • 28th encampment GAR Dept. of Indiana, 1908 (metal badge hanging from cloisonné GAR) • 36th Annual encampment, Union Ex-Prisoners of War, 1905 (metal pin with yellow ribbon, some wear on ribbon). Also second yellow ribbon. • 36th Annual encampment, Union Ex-Prisoners of War, metal pendant • 41st annual encampment of Union Ex-Prisoners of War, 1907, with pendant medallion (Death before dishonor) • GAR US Grant Post No. 340. Metal pin with large ribbon and metal fringe • John W. Morris Post No. 68, Conn., small red, white, and blue hanging from colorful pinback • Ladies of the GAR medallion hanging from ribbon • National Assoc. of Union Ex-Prisoners of War, 1902 (tattered yellow ribbon on metal pin). • Franklin, 1914. Colorful pinback depicting Union and Confederate veterans shaking hands (Whether Blue or Gray makes no difference to us, we are friends and brothers now). Fiftieth anniversary of Battle of Franklin; item lacking most of the gray ribbon. • 34th Reunion and the 52nd Anniversary Sultana Survivors’ Association, 1917 (white ribbon) • 36th Reunion and the 52nd Anniversary Sultana Survivors’ Association, 1919 (white ribbon) • 39th Ohio reunion, OVI, 1922. Tattered red ribbon • 57th Annual Reunion, 35th OVI Association, 1921 (pink ribbon, torn in half, worn) Finally, Winters kept two post-war scrapbooks reflecting on his Civil War experiences, both fine examples of the genre compiled ca 1912-1914. More than just the usual round of newspaper clippings relating to veterans, anniversaries, the first includes approximately 75 pages of original writing by Winters, including verses read at the 50th anniversary of the 50th OVI, 1912; Around the campfire of the 50th OVI, 1912; some `jingles;` and a lengthy piece entitled Comrades, 1912, a story of friendships of war; and several shorter poems. There is as well a separate, incomplete 19-page handwritten version of Comrades. The second scrapbook (oblong folio, 158pp.) includes a 2-page capsule summary of Winters’ service. For Midwestern veterans, the Sultana disaster was a landmark in the Civil War, signifying something about the sacrifices of war and something, perhaps, about how the common soldier was treated. First-hand accounts of the Sultana are scarce, but given that two thirds of the passengers died, letters from survivors are even scarcer. The two letters discussing the explosion would thus be a rare treat for historians, but combined with his post-war writings, published and unpublished, his war-related ephemera, and his very fine letters written as a soldier, the Winters collection is one of a kind.
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