November 21, 1863 Today’s letter was written by Roe to his friends and family back home. Most of it concerns specific information regarding various people and events from home. However, one part that I thought was pretty neat was that Roe mentions Fort Snelling, so we have a nice little Minnesota connection! Evidently, Roe and Mark’s brother, Hiram, is stationed at Fort Snelling. The only additional information we get is that he is well and Roe believes it is better that he is there and not out in the field. I figured it would be interesting to look up Fort Snelling’s role in the Civil War regarding Union soldiers. It’s a place I’ve driven by but never actually visited. Did you know that Minnesota was the first state to offer troops to fight for the Union? When the war broke out in April 1861, Minnesota’s governor, Alexander Ramsey, had been in Washington D.C. On the spot, he told President Lincoln that he would make sure Minnesota formed a regiment of 1,000 volunteer soldiers. It’s pretty cool that Minnesota was the first to commit troops to the war. Due to the need to train these new recruits, “Minnesota re-opened Fort Snelling to serve as a rendezvous and training center for the volunteer soldiers.” Throughout the war, troops would be taught army basics and spent large portions of their time marching and drilling. This is similar to what Isaac Mark Abbott describes in his letters. He often remarks that a majority of his time is spent practicing various methods, which includes drilling and parade marches. By the end of the war, almost 25,000 soldiers went to Fort Snelling before continuing to fight the Confederacy. Along with serving as the starting point for many troops, Fort Snelling also was the “mustering-out point” for the men who were heading back to civilian life. Even though Fort Snelling wasn’t located in the areas most directly associated with the Civil War and its various battles, it still played a crucial role in the war. Overall, the fort produced “eleven infantry regiments, two companies of sharpshooters, several unites of artillery and cavalry, and several dozen sailors.” It definitely provided support to the Union efforts as many of these regiments found themselves in some of the war’s decisive most battles, including Gettysburg, Shiloh, and Vicksburg. Works Cited: Minnesota Historical Society. “Historic Fort Snelling: The Civil War (1861-1865).” http://www.historicfortsnelling.org/history/military-history/civil-war (accessed February 12, 2014). Photo Credit: Minnesota Historical Society. “Historic Fort Snelling.” http://www.historicfortsnelling.org (accessed February 12, 2014).
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November 11, 1862
Letter #1: The first letter written on this day introduces us officially to Roe Abbott. While mentioned briefly before, we have never actually seen anything from Roe’s point of view. It’s a nice change to hear Roe’s account of army life. It offers a slightly different perspective on the events that were happening at the time. Roe tells his father that he just received $36 and has spent most of it on paying someone back and purchasing boots and socks. Ideally, soldiers were to receive payment about every two weeks. This wasn’t necessarily the case, as the paymaster had the difficult task of keeping up with the regiments as they moved around. If we assume that the Abbotts were on the lower side of military rankings, they would make about $13 per month. Roughly then, we can guess that it has been about three months since the last payment. He is sending home $20 and asks that one of his debts be paid off there and to give the rest to his mother. He mentions that many in the camp have fallen sick though he believes it is mainly homesickness. It was interesting to read a different person’s viewpoint about the life that Mark Abbott has been describing. The day’s letters are interesting in the sense that we get to hear about similar events from the two brothers. Mark is far more descriptive than Roe, who kept his letter short and to the point. Mark oftentimes does provide far more lengthy descriptions of circumstances, elaborating sometimes on even the tiniest of details. Works Cited: The Civil War Trust: Saving America's Civil War Battlefields, "Military Pay." Accessed November 3, 2013 http://www.civilwar.org/education/history/warfare-and-logistics/logistics/pay.html. March, 15, 1863
This letter, written by Roe, is one of three letters written by the brothers today (Mark wrote the other two). Roe describes the regiment being called into action. They were woken up at 11 pm and left camp around 3:30 am, proceeding to board a train to carry them to the Franklin, TN area. This city, a suburb of Nashville today, is, according to Roe, about twenty minutes from the regiment’s camp. They then went a little farther towards Spring Hill (about thirty miles from Nashville) as that was where the Rebels were supposed to be. In the distance, the regiment could hear cannons firing but they never actually saw action, instead making a makeshift camp where they stayed for six days. Interestingly enough, the “Springhill” mentioned by Roe would later become the site of an 1864 battle known as “The Battle of Spring Hill” during which the Confederates sustained heavy casualties. Such mentions happen more frequently as the war progresses. One of the Abbotts will tell their family about some general who was killed or a recent Union victory. It is true that at the time these were important events during the war. But the significance some of them had wasn’t fully realized until after the war ended. Over the course of this blog, such references by the Abbotts will be discussed and put into historical context. It’s nice that the Abbotts mentioned certain events and thought it would be good to tell the family about them. One part of the letter that stuck out was Roe describing how much his feet hurt after marching. His feet began to blister so much that he had to remove his shoes and walk barefoot for a bit. He ended up reaching camp long after the rest of the group, due to his having to stop again and put his boots back on. Obviously, modern transportation was still a thing of the future, so for troops to get back and forth from their main camp to battle sites, they’d have to mainly walk. Cavalry men would have access to horses and sometimes, from reading the entire Abbott collection, the soldiers utilized the railroads. But by and large, it would appear that walking was the main mode of transportation. Such wear and tear on the body had to be hard to treat when you were constantly on the move. Works Cited: The Civil War Trust: Saving America’s Civil War Battlefields. “The Battle of Spring Hill.” Accessed December 2, 2013. http://www.civilwar.org/battlefields/spring-hill.html. March 30, 1863
Mark and Roe Abbott both wrote letters home on this date. Roe’s is a bit longer and addressed to the entire family. He informs his father that he has finally come to the conclusion that the entire war resulted from slavery. Others believed that slavery was merely the pretext for the war but Roe emphasizes that without slavery, the war never would have happened. An interesting comment that Roe said really stuck out. He said that while he believed that eventually all slaves would be free, making the U.S. a truly free nation, he did not expect to see it while he was alive. This could mean two things. Either he felt like he would be killed during the war or he believed that the Union would not prevail. Mark had previously articulated his beliefs about the war but this is one of the first times Roe states his ideas. The Civil War Trust organization’s website contains a nice overview of the war, including facts that Roe articulates in his letter. The war erupted because free and slave states disagreed over the federal government’s rights versus states’ rights. Did the national government have the right to ban slavery in newly formed states? Pro-slave states certainly did not think so, believing this action violated their individual rights. Roe also gets into a small discussion about political parties. He said that, in the future, there shouldn’t be any parties, as he personally doesn’t care whether someone is a Republican or a Democrat. Everyone has the right to choose their belief and political system. Roe does allow that he despises the “butternuts” as men from both parties joined the Confederacy. His ideas definitely apply to the United States today. Part of the reason the government shut down in 2013 was a lack of agreement between political parties. Many people forget that history repeats itself. The specific issues each generation deals with may be different but the overarching themes remain similar. Political parties at odds about voting to continue or end slavery is quite similar to issues today when Republicans and Democrats are divided about issues like gun control or the country’s debt ceiling. Works Cited: McPherson, Dr. James, The Civil War Trust: Saving America’s Civil War Battlefields. “A Brief Overview of the American Civil War.” Accessed December 2, 2013. http://www.civilwar.org/education/history/civil-war-overview/overview.html. |
AuthorTessa Wakefield, student intern at the Concordia College Archives, assembled these blog entries in 2013-2014 for the Isaac Mark Abbott Civil War Letters Collection. The posts summarize the content of the letters, interpret Abbott's experiences and place them in the larger context of the Civil War. Archives
March 2014
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