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CIVIL WAR ARCHIVE OF J.R. DOW, 31ST OVI,
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CIVIL WAR ARCHIVE OF J.R. DOW, 31ST OVI,
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Co. H. 281 war date letters, (75 post-war), April 1861-1883. One the mainstay regiments in the western theatre, the 31st Ohio saw more than its share of action in Kentucky and Tennessee before joining Sherman through Georgia and the Carolinas. John R. Dow, a teenaged blacksmith from Chatham (or Freedonia), Licking Co., Ohio, went eagerly along for the ride as a bugler with Co. H, regularly writing letters home that demonstrate how, in many ways, the army could be seen as an extension of the local community, with news about copperheads in town as current on the front lines as news of soldiers` deaths was at home, and as readily exchanged as news of friends in the Gallant 76th. In his letters, Dow typically mixes a strong motivation to defend the Union cause with an eternal optimism, and although the results are sometimes almost comical, glimpses of realism occasionally entered his view. Shortly after arriving in Kentucky, Dow wrote home that `a Secesh attempted to throw the train of[f] the track but did not succeed as he was arrested and but [sic] on the train And when we got to Tenison they was going to put him in jail But as they were marching him up Street a union man steped out of the Ranks and cut his throat so that stoped the devils wind` (Oct. 13, 1861). It was more than two months, however, before he faced a significant battle (near Cumberland, Ky., in late December), which he described succinctly: `The fight lasted about 4 hours when the Rebels retreated into their entrenchments but we quickly whiped out there they then crossed the Cumberland river in an old steam boat as they were taken the last boat over a bomb shell from one of our guns struck the boat and set it a fire. We captured every thing they had, about 20 pieces of canon some of them they got of[f] us at Bulls Run…` The boost of confidence that followed and the endurance his regiment showed in chasing rebel troops around the state leant him plenty of ammunition to engage in a friendly rivalry with the `Gallant 76th`, which was raised in part in his home county. After reading an account in the Newark Advocate of the Battle of Fort Donelson praising the 76th for making a forced march of six miles en route to the battle, Dow retorted: `I wonder what they would think if they had a force march of 20 miles and wade a creek as big as the north fork and lay out all night with out eny thing to ear as we did at the time of Battle of Luzerns Cross Roads, I think they are about played out. By the time they have marched all over the state of Kentuckey as we have they will know what soldieran is we have marched over 500 miles since coming to Ky.` (March 5, 1862) The 31st showed up at Shiloh too late to take part, but joined the main force at Cornith, roaming throughout Mississippi and Alabama after rebels and always open to news from deserters and civilians that the Confederate soldiers were nearly starved out, were ready to desert, could be taken without a fight, and similar sentiments. He enjoyed being in brigade with the `Bully Dutch` of the 9th Ohio, a German regiment that he reported `are raising the devil,` throughout Southern Tennessee, and `have already Burned two villages (New Market & Salem) and hung its citizens in one place they hung four up to the same limb` (Aug. 11, 1862). With this initiation, the 31st returned to Kentucky to counter Bragg`s invasion and saw action at Perryville. Wise to the ways of the enemy by this point, Dow wasn`t easily fooled by even the most benign sights: `Yesterday a squad of Morgans Cavalry came into camp under a Flag of Truce there were twelve of them all officers and all fine looking fellows they came (as they said) to get their Families who lives in town here but they come no doubt to Reconnoiter our camp and find out our position so that they could make an attack on us and capture us for our Regt. is here all alone and they would have done it to had they made an attempt` (Nov. 21, 1862). When they moved to Nashville, they made a point of camping on a farm of a son of President Polk, `a bitter secesh and is not afraid to you so either.` The 31st were in the front lines at Stone`s River throughout the battle, though they were not in the thickest part of the fray. `The enemy advanced on our Brigade three times but was driven back each time by our Batteries. Gen. Rosecrans visited us in the morning on the 2nd days fight and told us that we had an important position and he expected us to hold it…` (Jan. 9, 1863). After a few days of reflection he added more detail: `We have had a fight here which was a great victory on our side, the Rebels retreated and left every thing they had. They were very strongly fortified and we could never whiped them if had not got scarred and left. We had about 50 men killed while the enemy had some 250 or 300 killed and among the Gen. Zollicoffer was shot by Col. Fry of the 5th Kentuckey Regt. We took some 300 Prisoners and among was Gen. Crittendon he tried to play off on us by saying that he was a surgeon…` (Jan. 21) Dow`s letters are particularly revealing of the ways in which Civil War units lived as distant extensions of their hometowns, and Dow regularly peppered his relatives with questions about who the `Butternuts` were in Newton Twp., informing them that when the boys in the regiment received letters from Butternuts, they ignored them, and adding that all those inclined to be Butternuts in the regiment had either died or deserted, leaving only `true blue` Union men. `I would like to see some of the Newton township Copperheads go the same way they had better quit writing treasonable letters to the Soldiers and not try to discourage those that are willing [to] fight. There is one fellow in our company that gets the most discouraging letters you ever read of from his sisters too. The boy is perfectly sick of every thing things she writes and letts him how fast the niggers are coming into Ohio and how they [obliterated] the White Women, tells him that this war is nothing but an abolition war act` (May 22, 1863). Dow was not a man to listen to an opposing view. In the debacle at Chickamauga, Dow`s regiment lost 200, but despite the losses, Dow`s optimism never waned. Only a few days after the engagement, he insisted that `The Boys are in the best Spirits, we have plenty of rations. They say there never was harder fighting than was done on Sunday. I was in the Rebel lines but run the gauntlet.` Undaunted, he said that he found the rebel soldiers facing them more friendly than ever, `They would lay down their arms and meet half way between their parts and exchange papers or have a game of cards. The Boys have plenty of fun with them, both armies lay in sight of each other. The Rebs sing `Old Rosy is our man` and our Boys sing `Bragg A Boo` to them (Oct. 9, 1863). Although the regiment sustained another 40 casualties at Mission Ridge, Dow reported gleefully `we have gained a compleat victory over Bragg`s army and have driven him beyond Ringgold, Ga. We got over 50 pieces of Artillery and over 10,000 prisoners and any amount of commissary goods…` John Dow received a furlough for home early in 1864 as a reward for reenlistment, returning to take part in the Atlanta campaign. In Georgia, he found renewed evidence of rebel cleverness everywhere: `we came to where there had been a rebel picket post and there we saw where the rebs had played our men a regular yankee trick – they had stuffed about fifty suits of their old Butternut clothes and had set them up against the apple trees and around an old House from what I can hear about it our cavalry fought the Paddies about an hour before they discovered the joke. Some them looked real natural and one would at once take them for genuine Johnny Rebs` (May 10, 1864). Before long, however, he discovered that not every rebel was a stuffed shirt. At Kingston, Ga., the 31st was thrown into the mix: `Our Regt. was taken in. Uselessly three regiments of us (17th, 21st & 82d Ind.) were ordered to charge the enemys works without any suport and of course could take them lost 4 men killed and twenty two wounded… stopped the other day near an old planters House By the end of July, they had advanced to the Chattahoochie and could see Atlanta below and could sense the rising desperation of the Confederate forces. `It is one of the finest landscapes I ever saw,` Dow reported, `at the foot of the hill four revel deserters were hanged in the woods. I went to see them they day we came here it was an awful sight to see men hung up by a hickory with(?) to a tree. A woman who lived near told me that there were forty hung for the same offence. Some where in these parts they were living by Order of Johnson to be hung where ever they were caught. The men that I saw belonged to the 1st Geo. State Malitia. They had been hanging over a month and of course were all decayed` (July 12, 1864). A highlight of his Georgia letters is one written from the Battlefield at Jonesboro, mentioning the entry into Atlanta on Sept. 2 (the 31st were acting as train guards and were not in the battle itself), and another, very long and detailed, diary-like letter written Aug.12-14, 1864, as the pressure on Atlanta was ratcheted up. Cut off from regular communication, Dow`s letters during Sherman`s marches are less frequent, but give a strong sense of the growing confidence in the army and their sense of taking part in the defining mission of the war. At Savannah, Dow wrote `I would not missed this grand raid of Shermans for the whole of Licking County with a part of red brush throwed in. Our Division has had quite a number of skirmishes as we were the rear guard for the army from Miledgeville south at Waynesboro we had the satisfaction of helping Genl. Kilpatrick whip Wheelers Cavalry` (Dec. 18, 1864). When the army entered the Carolinas, Dow was transferred to new duties, as bugler with the Brigade band. He wrote his sister: `Tell Ma that my duty is not lighter than it ever was before. Borley can tell you about how much a band plays as ours is a Brigade Band he does not have to play for general mounting dress parade etc as do regimental Bands. I have march and carry my nice little knapsack but I don’t mind that a bit as I do not carry a mules load as some of the Boys do. During battles bands are ordered to the rear and of course are not in any danger whatever. I was in the rear during the last fight for the first time during my soldiering. The boys in the Brigade all know that I have been in the front with and now I can stay to the rear with a clear conscience` (March 29, 1865). Regardless of his new assignment, Dow gleefully joined in Sherman`s notorious scorched earth activities, approving of the intent of the tactics. `In South Carolina,` he wrote, `we burned every thing we came across and I do not remember of seeing but one house that was not burned, and that would have been burned had it not been for a sick woman. I really pity some of the little children but the women are ten times as bad as the men. I could see every one of them hung up by the neck, wherever one [of] them would say any thing impertinent to one of our soldiers he would just strike a match for their `hearth & home.` I had the pleasure of burning out one place where they had confined Union men rebel deserters and run away negroes at Fayetteville, N.C. This is where I saw the first whipping post, where about a month before we come that had whipped a poor white man for some trivial offence…. Schofield had given protection papers to all the citizens but Shermans Yanks couldn`t see them, so we have in a store of provisions pots & kettles and some bed clothing we are carrying on thus not to me Pleasement as Bones says and I would not take a farm for my interest in it. The 11th Ohio boys are all right. Hopper is lively goes in heavy on the cits. I guess he has stolen more horses & mules than any other man in the Brigade` (March 30, 1865). Passing through Washington, Dow arrived home July 26, 1865. Particularly rich in military detail for the early campaigns in Kentucky and for the Atlanta Campaign, the collection includes some very fine individual letters from other periods (around Savannah, the end of the March through the Carolinas), and a number of miscellaneous items of note, the most unusual being a manuscript Constitution of the Lister Literary Society, convened by soldiers of Co. H at Camp Dick Robinson, Kentucky, in October 1861, and an unusual printed funeral notice from Newark, Ohio, for Maj. D. A. B. Moore, killed at the Battle of Murfreesboro (Stone`s River). Most of the war-date letters were written by John R. Dow, but a few were written by his soldier brother, A. G. Dow or other soldier friends. Letters from his sister Anna and other relatives at home contain valuable home front news of the activities of local Copperheads, local politics, and events around town and around the farm, completing the circuit of intimacy between the wartime family as it spread from north to south. Noteworthy among these are a half dozen good letters from a brother Isaac in central Indiana describing wartime conditions there, including a superb letter describing both copperhead and Republican political rallies in 1864 and a fine letter describing the response to the Assassination of Lincoln in Terre Haute: `Friday we had a day of rejoicing here over the recent victories of our folks had a big time business was suspended had fire works at night but scarsely had the people got through their rejoicing when the sad news came that President Lincoln and Secretary Seward had been assassinated the people were astounded they could not believe it at first. It has produced universal gloom all over the city business was stoped and today a great many buildings are draped in mourning. We head that there was some men hung in Indinapolis for rejoicing over the death of the President` (April 15, 1865). A rich view of the wartime experiences of an avid, deeply committed Union soldier from Ohio, including an intimate conversation between life in the field and life at home. Good condition throughout, with expected age and soiling.
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