The Civil War Letters of Sergeant Onley Andrus

By Onley Andrus

Sergeant Andrus served in Co. D, 95th Illinois Infantry. Here are reprinted 61 letters written home during the war, beginning in September 1862 and continues through the end of the War. The regiment fought in the Vicksburg Campaign, the Red River Campaign, the pursuit of Sterling Price, Nashville, New Orleans, and Mobile.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Braunfell Books
• Release date: Feb 22, 2023
• ISBN: 9781805230960

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© Braunfell Books 2023, all rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted by any means, electrical, mechanical or otherwise without the written permission of the copyright holder.

Publisher’s Note

Although in most cases we have retained the Author’s original spelling and grammar to authentically reproduce the work of the Author and the original intent of such material, some additional notes and clarifications have been added for the modern reader’s benefit.

We have also made every effort to include all maps and illustrations of the original edition the limitations of formatting do not allow of including larger maps, we will upload as many of these maps as possible.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

TABLE OF CONTENTS 1

Foreword 3

Plates 5

MOVEMENTS OF ONLEY ANDRUS’S REGIMENT 7

I.—Marking Time 10

II.—The Baptism of Blood at Vicksburg 27

Lake Providence, La. March 13, 1863—No 26 37

Direct via Cairo as Usual—No 35 Lake Providence La—Sun morn Apr 26th/63 41

Smiths Landing La—May 9/63 43

III.—Seeing the Elephant: Red River and Guntown 46

IV.—In Pursuit of Sterling Price 68

V.—From Nashville to New Orleans 88

VI.—Mobile, and the Cruel War Is Over 103

VII.—Conclusion 113

THE CIVIL WAR LETTERS OF SERGEANT ONLEY ANDRUS

ILLINOIS STUDIES IN THE SOCIAL SCIENCES

VOLUME XXVIII, NUMBER 4

EDITED BY

FRED ALBERT SHANNON

Foreword

OF THE FOLLOWING COLLECTION of sixty-one Civil War letters, forty-seven were written by Sergeant Onley L. Andrus to his wife, Mary, whom in the early letters he addresses as Molly, once as Molley, three times as Mary, and during the last nine months of the correspondence as Mollie. Two letters he wrote to Mary and friends, and two more were to Mary’s sister Helen. One letter is from Onley’s parents, another from his sister Lodema, and two are from Mary, all addressed to him. The rest of the collection are from Onley’s elder brother, John F. Andrus, who wrote one letter from Sherman’s army to his parents, one to Lodema, one to the family, and three to Mary.

These letters were preserved and treasured by Mary Andrus for half a century after her husband’s death, and then she willed them to her daughter, Helen Andrus Harris. They were brought to my attention by Marjorie Harris, daughter-in-law of Helen Harris, who thought that I might be interested in them. I was, and mainly because the principal writer so well portrayed the feelings and changing moods of the lonely soldier far from home, uncertain even of the day’s movements of his regiment, and enduring, though not always patiently, all kinds of privations and hardships. Highly regrettable is the fact that Mary Andrus preserved only two of her own letters to Onley, for he must have carried more of them back home with him at the end of the war.

The letters are presented here as accurately as it was possible for me to copy them. Only one word in the whole collection was so completely obliterated that not even a safe guess could be made. On the two or three occasions when my ponderings over a word resulted in a guess instead of a certainty I have queried my conclusion, in brackets. When Onley was feeling well and was writing under favorable conditions his rhetoric was at its best. When not very well, when his fingers were numb with cold, when half starved, or when sitting on the ground and using his knapsack propped on a camp kettle for a desk, he sometimes omitted punctuation and ran his sentences together with little regard even for the capitalization of sentence beginnings. In all cases he was liberal in the use of capital letters where they had no justification. His only punctuation anywhere was one dot for a comma, two dots for a period, a few quotation marks not always properly placed, and an occasional exclamation point. The colon, semicolon, apostrophe, and question mark were things he did not bother with. My only unindicated alterations in his letters were the insertion of commas where absolutely needed, the occasional omission of a comma where it distorted the sense of the passage unduly, and the substitution of periods and capital letters at sentence divisions where the need of such additions was clearly indicated. These changes merely clarify the meaning, and it would be too utterly pedantic to indicate all the places where they occur. Where it was desirable to complete the spelling of a word or to supply an omitted word such alterations I have put in brackets. All parentheses in the work are those of the writer himself. All misspelled words are repeated faithfully as they were written and are not labeled [sic]. Should such instances be confused with any printers’ errors that escape my eye the reader will still not be very badly misled.

John F. Andrus was much less careful in his writing than was his brother, and the first two of John’s letters are reproduced exactly as he wrote them, except that extra space is provided to indicate the division of sentences. Onley’s sister Lodema had just completed her school work at the county seat of Woodstock (McHenry County, Illinois) and was teaching her first term when she wrote the only letter to Onley that is included in this collection. She wrote a very neat hand, even if her comments were not very profound, and she had an inordinate fondness for commas, even at the end of sentences. Since she was a school teacher, I was too timid to alter anything in her letter.

I made a conscientious effort to identify all persons mentioned in Onley’s letters, if they were in his regiment. These were found in the Report of the Adjutant General of the State of Illinois (rev. ed., Springfield, 1901), Vol. V. This report is sometimes faulty, so further identification was made in Wales W. Wood, History of the Ninety-fifth Regiment Illinois Infantry Volunteers (Chicago, 1865). The spellings of names in the two sources do not always agree, and a check with other sources has shown that neither is infallible. Where one source agrees with the spelling used by Andrus, and the other disagrees, Andrus himself was followed. Where both sources agree, but disagree with Andrus, the sources were followed. No examples were found where no two of the three agree. It would be an interminable task, not worth the effort, to attempt identification of soldiers mentioned who were not in the same regiment with Andrus and whose position in the army he did not indicate. There were thousands of regiments.

General officers in the Union Army were looked up in Frederick Phisterer, Statistical Record of the Armies of the United States (Campaigns of the Civil War, sup. vol., New York, 1883). Obscure names among Confederate leaders were identified mainly in Marcus J. Wright, General Officers of the Confederate Army (New York, 1911). A few names of persons not in the Illinois Ninety-fifth were found in the county histories of McHenry County, Illinois. First names and nicknames of relatives and neighbors in the home community, where no surnames were given, were generally ignored in the editing. This much though is clear: The John and Peter whose deaths are mentioned were Mary’s brothers, and Father Chamberlin was her father. Delia was Peter’s wife. Sarah and Helen were Mary’s sisters, and Sarah was married to F. J. Wheaton. Lodema was Onley’s sister.

I have also indicated in the notes the location of places mentioned in the letters, especially when such identification would help the reader to know just where Onley’s regiment was at the time. Certain other matters are explained in the notes for the benefit of anybody needing the information. As to the value of the letters themselves, they are their own best witness.

FRED ALBERT SHANNON

Plates

Map of Movements of Onley Andrus’s Regiment

Letter of John Andrus to Family and Friends

Letter of Onley Andrus to Mary

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MOVEMENTS OF ONLEY ANDRUS’S REGIMENT

Starting from Nunda in northeastern Illinois, Andrus went by way of Genoa City, Wisconsin, to Camp Fuller at Rockford, Illinois, The movements of the regiment thereafter until its discharged members returned home are listed from point to point below. For convenience Nunda is given as the beginning and stopping point, though the regiment was collected from all parts of McHenry and Boone counties. Furthermore, not all members of the regiment went by way of Genoa City to the training camp at Rockford. The places listed below may be identified on the accompanying map.

Nunda, Illinois

Genoa City, Wisconsin

Rockford, Illinois

Chicago, Illinois

Cairo, Illinois

Columbus, Kentucky

Jackson, Tennessee

Grand Junction, Tennessee

Holly Springs, Mississippi

Abbeville, Mississippi

Oxford, Mississippi

Yocona, Mississippi

Oxford, Mississippi

Abbeville, Mississippi

Holly Springs, Mississippi

Salem, Mississippi

Holly Springs, Mississippi

Memphis, Tennessee

Milliken’s Bend, Louisiana

Lake Providence, Louisiana

Milliken’s Bend, Louisiana

Grand Gulf, Mississippi

Raymond, Mississippi

Vicksburg, Mississippi

Natchez, Mississippi

Vicksburg, Mississippi

Alexandria, Louisiana

Grand Ecore, Louisiana

Near to Shreveport, Louisiana

Grand Ecore, Louisiana

Alexandria, Louisiana

Vicksburg, Mississippi

Memphis, Tennessee

Guntown, Mississippi

Memphis, Tennessee

St. Charles, Arkansas

De Valls Bluff, Arkansas

Augusta, Arkansas

De Valls Bluff, Arkansas

Brownsville, Arkansas

Cape Girardeau, Missouri

St. Louis, Missouri

Jefferson City, Missouri

Sedalia, Missouri

Jefferson City, Missouri

St. Louis, Missouri

Cairo, Illinois

Smithland, Kentucky

Nashville, Tennessee

Lawrenceburg, Tennessee

Waynesboro, Tennessee

Clifton, Tennessee

Eastport, Mississippi

Corinth, Mississippi

Eastport, Mississippi

Clifton, Tennessee

Cairo, Illinois

New Orleans, Louisiana

Fort Gaines, Alabama

Cedar Point, Alabama

Mobile, Alabama

Greenville, Alabama

Montgomery, Alabama

Opelika, Alabama

Montgomery, Alabama

Selma, Alabama

Demopolis., Alabama

Meridian, Mississippi

Jackson, Mississippi

Vicksburg, Mississippi

Memphis, Tennessee

Cairo, Illinois

St. Louis, Missouri

Springfield, Illinois

Chicago, Illinois

Nunda, Illinois

I.—Marking Time

AMERICANS once had a vivid slang expression for complaining violently or whiningly. It was called bellyaching. But styles in slang, as in everything else, change, and in later years the he-man word of the earlier days has been supplanted by the more effeminate, equally slangy, but exact synonym of griping.

But while slang may change, human nature remains essentially the same through all the generations, and, from the earliest records of the belligerent human race to the latest returns from the camp or battlefield, otherwise excellent soldiers have been noted for whatever was the equivalent term, in their respective days, for griping. Even in the Homeric legends Achilles is pictured almost all the way through the Iliad as sitting in his tent alternately moping and griping. Achilles was a privileged character, and nobody could gainsay him his right to remain in his tent or to do what he pleased while there or elsewhere. But at all ages, the common soldier in the ranks has had to obey orders and do his complaining on the side. Wise officers have always welcomed the soldier who takes out his spite at the army and at the world in general in healthy grumbling among his fellows, just so he behaves with the utmost decorum in the presence of officers.

Onley L. Andrus, from a little railroad junction in McHenry County, Illinois (first called Dearborn, later Nunda, and since 1914 a part of Crystal Lake), was the ideal type of soldier in the American Civil War; but he griped about nearly everything: the officers, the food, the living quarters, the non-activity, the activity, his wife’s slowness in answering letters, what she had to say when she did answer them, the traitorous rebels, the old neighbors who were foolish enough to enlist, the cowards who refused to enlist, the high-bounty men, the anxious seekers for exemption, the star gazers, the money grubbers back at home, the fellows who owed him money, and especially the Negroes. He simply could not stand Negroes; he did not like them, and he made no effort to conceal his feelings about them. Sometimes he became almost violent in his disgust because the conflict had turned into a war to free the slaves. Like a good portion of other Northerners, including a large share of the soldiers, he was all for saving the Union, but he had the irrational notion that free Negroes would have a more depressing effect on the labor of white men than would slaves. He could even become angry enough to express the hope that Confederate raiders would wreak their destruction on his own smug community in Illinois. But, like all accomplished gripers, he was anything but consistent in his diatribes. He deplored the wanton destruction of Southern property, but he willingly participated in it. For a few days he even considered transferring to a Negro regiment so that he could procure a commission, but his letters on this subject seem to be a veiled appeal for his wife to discourage him. Among things that he did not like, some of his old neighbors and his wife’s relatives, who had looked upon him as a kind of drifter, occupied a cherished place. Nevertheless, he could put up a valiant fight in the assaults upon the fortifications at Vicksburg, in the fierce battle of Nashville, at the capture of Mobile, and elsewhere. Without doubt he fully earned his stripes of first sergeant.

Best of all, the letters he wrote home included many to his wife, and she preserved them. Being to his wife, the letters bared exactly what he was thinking at the time, and sometimes his thoughts were fairly sulphurous. Some of his letters were captured by the Confederates, others apparently were never delivered for various reasons, but more than fifty remain, covering most of the months from September, 1862, to May, 1865. Because these letters were to his wife, it would be easy to form a harsh judgment of Onley. The worst impressions of George B. McClellan have been gleaned from letters to his wife, letters that were not intended for the public. In his official dealings McClellan was far more circumspect than in his letters to Mrs. McClellan, and so it may be judged was the case with the obscure Onley Andrus. From other sources it has been learned that he was a kind and adoring husband and father, but he was the old type of domineering head of the family—a type that seems to have become extinct. In Onley’s household children were to be seen but not heard. Yet the little black-eyed Hattie, the only child in the family during the war, is referred to lovingly in many of the letters.

Andrus was born in 1835, and was 27 years of age when he enlisted in the army. His wife Mary was six years younger and many degrees meeker than her husband. She loved him as a husband and looked up to him as a father, and he in turn assumed full responsibility in the dual role in which he was cast. His determination to enlist and to serve out his term was, as he strongly implies, largely in order to convince the doubters in his neighborhood that he was a dependable man and a strict adherent to duty. Also, in the hard years of the 1860’s, $13 a month in the army was considered very good to the ordinary poor and propertyless man. But there was an additional incentive. The War Department was paying a bounty of $100 for each volunteer for three years’ service, in addition to a premium of $2. One-fourth of the bounty, the premium, and a month’s advance in wages were paid to the soldier on muster, this making a total of $40 which could be left at home with Molly and would be ample for her needs and those of Hattie for several months as they lived around with the relatives. In addition the county had raised $40 bounty money to give each recruit, making $80 in all that Onley could leave behind for Molly and the baby, a sum probably larger than he had ever possessed at any one time before. In his letters he occasionally speaks of how his savings from army pay might set him up in farming or some other business after the war. The bounties received by the McHenry County troops were smaller than many of that year, and vastly smaller than the highest bounties of 1863 and 1864 in a few localities. In fact, when the men of 1862 got to the field the veterans with whom they associated at first sneeringly referred to the new recruits as forty-dollar men. This designation, however, was gradually dropped as the new regiments proved their worth in battle. But there must have been many soldiers of 1862 who later regretted not waiting longer to enlist, for in later years they could have moved to high-bounty centers and enlisted for a fee of $1,000 or more. In 1864 a number of McHenry County boys were recruited to replenish a sadly depleted regiment, and these newcomers were also referred to contemptuously as seven-hundred-dollar men.

The evils produced by the bounty system can be found elsewhere.{1} The immediate reasons for the bounties of 1862 can be stated in few words. Early in 1862 Edwin Stanton, Secretary of War, had committed one of his colossal blunders in totally abolishing the federal recruiting system just at the beginning of McClellan’s campaign in Virginia. Additional stupidity at the nation’s capital, more than anything else, doomed McClellan’s campaign to failure and caused useless sacrifice of many lives through withholding large numbers of troops from the campaign against Lee. The drain of the Battle of Shiloh and the campaigns costly in life resulting from the selection of one incapable general after another in the East was, during the spring and summer of 1862, fast depleting the proud army of 500,000 raised in 1861. So on July 2, 1862, the President was compelled to call for 300,000 more troops, and on August 4, 1862, came another call for 300,000 militia. Quotas were assigned among the states and districts, and it was provided that in any area that did not fill its quota by volunteering, the state or the federal government was to conduct a draft for nine-months’ militia.