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P. H. “Henry” Musty Papers, 1861-1865. 61st Ohio Infantry including 7 diaries, 6 sketches, 1 letter. The artistically inclined P. H. `Henry` Musty, of Belgian extraction, left Greensburg, Ohio, to enlist as a soldier in September 1861, and again in February 1862. After performing guard duty watching over prisoners at Camp Chase in the late winter, Musty transferred into the newly formed 61st Ohio on May 22. Musty’s new regiment was soon sent to the front in western Virginia, joining John C. Fremont’s army. His diary for 1862 includes brief, often telegraphic daily entries of that regiment’s activities through September 9, with brief mentions of the Battles of Freeman’s Fort, Groveton, and 2nd Bull Run (Don’t feel well. About done out. Hard fighting all day continual fire kept up all day ere our troops fell back to Centreville… another Bull Run). Musty fell out after suffering severe exposure during the cruel post-Fredericksburg winter of 1862-1863 and never returned to active service. Although he was discharged, he apparently recovered sufficiently to enable him later to serve with the 164th Ohio Home Guard. Although most of Musty’s diaries are terse to the point of laconic, one volume stands out for superior content: a combination copybook and diary. Interspersed among the more or less pedestrian poetry and songs are copies of war date letters written to Musty both from the home front and from his former comrades in arms still in the service. One of the best of these is a stirring account by Joel Frank (whose name is also noted in a drawing by Musty) written during the midst of the Atlanta Campaign, in which Frank describes the changes affecting the 61st Ohio in the months following the Battle of Gettysburg, with new officers and a new attitude now that they were no longer `featherbeds.` Other letters include a copy of an unusual and remarkably frank formal complaint against Captain Thomas Graham for continual drunkenness, and an account of new conscripts received into the 104th Ohio (another regiment raised near Greensburg) who have to be guarded as prisoners. More optimistically, there is an account of the 104th during the drive to Atlanta: Hen! We have been driving the Rebs through Georgia pretty fast, you had ought to see their breast works, one after another, which they left without much resistance, and yet they still claim the further they get us down towards Atlanta, the rougher it will be on us. But I cant see it, for we have now got them on a level ground and there is no resistance for them for their best positions were Kenesaw & Lost Mountains which they could not keep us from flanking… (July 14, 1864). Better even than the copybook are the collection’s highest high points: six attractive pencil sketches executed by Musty during his time in Virginia, all written on the backs of letters, with the letters themselves mostly lost, although the sketches are essentially complete. Among these are: • A camp scene, Stafford, Va., with a soldier in front of a tent (separated at the fold); • A camp scene, Stafford, Va., with two soldiers cooking in front of a wooden shanty; • A charming vignetted view of Staenviare’s Headquarters near Stafford with a self-portrait of the artist and his easel in the foreground, • A view of a bridge beneath a heavy fort, labeled Aqui Bridge. Sketch torn at the bottom, missing a small section; • A full sheet drawing of a large hospital(?) tent marked no admittance with shelter tents in the background (backed by a complete letter dated May 28, 1862, the one year anniversary of the regiment’s entry into Virginia). • A schematic plan of the camp, depicting the arrangement of tents, commissary, hospital, etc. (separated at the fold, no loss). The collection also includes pre-war diaries for 1860(?) and 1861 containing daily accounts of Musty’s work on the family farm. The latter volume includes a few references to the war, including an aside that Musty felt the loss of friends who had listed. The collection also includes 11 engravings cut from European magazines, and 2 small engraved Civil War scenes (depicting the charge at Fort Donelson and siege of Vicksburg). A diary for January 1862 contains entries for only a few days, while an 1861 diary is attributed to an otherwise unidentified shoemaker. The Musty collection is noteworthy for its soldier’s-eye sketches of camp life in Virginia during the early phases of the war. Although they are not highly accomplished artistically, they have an immediacy about them that reflects their origins at the hands of a typical Union soldier and they convey a sense of life in the front lines that are sometimes lost on more highly trained artists. A fine collection with some faults, wear and tear, but losing none of the charm.

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