Letters from the War: The Civil War Letters of a Union Sergeant from the Front to His Home in Walton, New York, and Related Letters, 1862-1864

By George A. Crawley

From the Foreword by Elisabeth Lee Rennie: "The twenty-seven letters in this collection of Civil War era letters connect members of one small community in Walton, New York, near the Pennsylvania border. More than historical correspondence from the battlefield to the home front, this primary collection documents a social network of the time. Two local families, the Crawleys and the Hanfords, link through a marriage; around them is a shared web of siblings and parents; cousins, uncles, and grandparents; friends and acquaintances. Far from home, as their duties allowed, the soldiers collected paper and stamps to 'seat themselves' and check in with their network."

• Language: English
• Publisher: Gegensatz Press
• Release date: Apr 11, 2016
• ISBN: 9781621307532

Book preview

Letters from the War

The Civil War Letters of a Union Sergeant from the Front to His Home in Walton, New York, and Related Letters, 1862-1864

Sgt. George A. Crawley

144th New York State Volunteers

edited by his great-great-grandnephew

Eric v.d. Luft

with a foreword by Elisabeth Lee Rennie

Published by Gegensatz Press at Smashwords

ISBN 978-1-62130-753-2

Copyright © 2016 by Gegensatz Press

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2016

Foreword

Elisabeth Lee Rennie

The twenty-seven letters in this collection of Civil War era letters connect members of one small community in Walton, New York, near the Pennsylvania border. More than historical correspondence from the battlefield to the home front, this primary collection documents a social network of the time.

Two local families, the Crawleys and the Hanfords, link through a marriage; around them is a shared web of siblings and parents; cousins, uncles, and grandparents; friends and acquaintances. Far from home, as their duties allowed, the soldiers collected paper and stamps to seat themselves and check in with their network.

Letters are demanded by all, participation in the correspondence network was expected:

Write as soon as you get this so I can get an answer by the next mail (Letter XXI); write soon, give my respects to all and write soon (Letter XVIII).

Communication matters and tempers can flare:

when you write let me know why [mother] does not write to me I shall never send her another cent if she don't write to me you tell her so if you write (Letter III).

And:

Mary Warring does not write to me yet I do not care whether she writes at all if she does not like the stile she can do the other thing she can keep her writing paper and envelopes for what I care (Letter I).

This is serious business indeed.

As with contemporary social media, one letter reaches a wide audience.

Tell his wife she must not be at all alarmed about him if she hears he is sick for he is able to be around & is improving I presume he will write to her to day (Letter II).

Friends, brothers, and in-laws in the army share tents and news from home, and letters received are forwarded to other soldiers in other camps. This is a tangible internet of ink and paper, and therefore thankfully preservable for future readers.

Antique bits of writing and printed matter are termed ephemera by collectors, but they are far less ephemeral than the modern internet.

Whenever primary source accounts come to light, it's a great gift.

The facts of history are rarely immutable, and every primary source adds a bit of knowledge, insight, and perspective that colors the times. Every personal experience informs those facts in a way that is absolutely unique.

Movements of troops, orders, and maneuvers have their importance in military history, but the true impact of war is understood in terms of human experience.

Events are related here that would otherwise be lost forever: the poisoning of a woman in the camp (Letter VII); Carrie Hanford's new-found skill as a watch-trader (Letter XVI); the drowning of a soldier named George Moot, who was bathing and could not swim (Letter XX). Because these vignettes were posted, otherwise forgotten lives are given context and immortalized.

A slice of life during American Civil War history comes to life in these letters, and this book adds to the common clay of human experience that allows us to bridge time and warmly enter a world that otherwise exists only as cold facts, faint echoes, and fleeting shadows.

Ono Island, Alabama

and

Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts

April 2016

Editor's Introduction

Eighteen of the twenty-seven letters in this chronologically ordered collection are from George Crawley to his sister Addie. Five are from Charles Hanford to his brother Ed. One each is from John Hanford to his nephew Carrie; from George to his mother Eliza; from Carrie to Addie; and from both George and Carrie to Addie.

George A. Crawley (30 June 1832? - 17 July 1864), a blacksmith, was the brother of my great-great-grandmother, Adelaide (Addie) Crawley (5 December 1843 - 9 August 1925). On 7 April 1863 she married Edwin (Ed) Burnett Hanford (9 November 1839? or 1840? - 28 March 1922), a carriage maker. Both Addie and Ed are buried in the family plot (i.e., Section 1, Lot 34) in Walton Village Cemetery, New York. This plot for twelve graves contains one vacant gravesite. It was intended for Sgt. Crawley, who never returned from the Civil War. He is buried in Section 28, Grave 2678, Beaufort National Cemetery, Beaufort, South Carolina, alongside 87 of his comrades from the 144th New York State Volunteers.

In the Battle of Burden's Causeway (Bloody Bridge) on John's Island, South Carolina, Saturday, 9 July 1864, during a short strategic retreat of his Company B, 144th New York State Volunteer Infantry, to prevent being outflanked on the left,