By Elaine Grublin

On 8 January 1861, as the nation anxiously waited to see if civil war would come, Massachusetts Senator Charles Sumner wrote to newly inaugurated Governor John A. Andrew, "Massachusetts at last has found her voice." To Sumner, Andrew was that voice, demonstrated in his powerful inaugural address delivered in the Massachusetts State House three days before, on 5 January.
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By Melanie Leung, Intern

This three-page draft of a letter written by John A. Andrew, the newly inaugurated governor of Massachusetts, to General Winfield Scott concerns the preparation of Massachusetts' troops to assist with "maintaining the laws and integrity of the country" in the face of the seccession crisis.
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By Timothy Holt, Intern

In this four-page letter to his youngest son, Willy, a recent Harvard graduate who was studying in England, Edward Everett expresses his displeasure at not being appointed as a delegate to the Peace Conference meeting in Washington, reflects on the growing national crisis, and shares his view on what must be done to save the Union.
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By Elaine Grublin

In this diary entry, Charles Francis Adams (1807-1886) reflects on events in Washington on the day of Lincoln's first inaugural address, 4 March 1861. Adams describes last minute activities in the House of Representatives, reflects on his role as a member of Congress, and gives an eyewitness account of the inauguration and inaugural ball, including commentary on Lincoln's character.
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By Elaine Grublin

In this eight-page letter written to his wife Lydia, Charles Bowers offers a detailed description of his journey from Concord, Massachusetts to Washington as a member of the Fifth Regiment Massachusetts Volunteer Militia in response to Abraham Lincoln's first call for troops. He describes all facets of the journey: departing Concord for Boston on 19 April 1861; travel by train from Boston to New York City and by ship from New York to Annapolis, Maryland, where he views the USS Constitution at sea traveling north to the safety of the harbor in Newport, Rhode Island; a 20-mile overnight march from Annapolis to Annapolis Junction; and finally his arrival by train in the "beautiful Federal Capital of the nation" on 27 April. Bowers also offers insight into his motivations for joining the regiment and the hardships faced by the men on their long journey, and expresses wonder at being offered "a genuine corncake, made by the hand of a real slave" in Maryland.
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By Elaine Grublin

This four-page document contains a subscription list identifying twenty-two Massachusetts men pledging monetary assistance to pro-Union advocates in East Tennessee in support of their struggle to maintain themselves as citizens of the United States as Tennessee prepares to secede from the Union. The subscription was born out of a meeting (described in a letter from Boston businessman Amos A. Lawrence to Tennessee Senator Andrew Johnson) held in the Boston office of Amos A. Lawrence on 22 May 1861. At that meeting, fourteen prominent Massachusetts men, having "undoubted information that a crisis exists in East Tennessee involving the safety of the Union men," recommended that the citizens of Massachusetts lend support to that cause.
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By Bethany Hirsch, Intern

This two-page letter, written by Jeanie Pomeroy to Captain Richard Goodwin on 12 June 1861, accompanied parcels of clothing and towels made for the men of Stockbridge, Massachusetts serving in Company K of the Second Regiment Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry. In the letter Pomeroy states that the women of Stockbridge wish that the parcels "prove to promote [the troops] comfort, and aid them in performing faithfully the duties they have undertaken in their country's service."
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By Bethany Hirsch, Intern

In this twenty-page letter to his wife Sarah, dated 27 July 1861, Lieutenant John C. Robertson of the Eleventh Regiment Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry offers the “full particulars” of his experiences during the Battle of Bull Run. Informing Sarah that he has “been in battle,” Robertson offers a detailed description of the day’s events, including the silent overnight march from Centreville to Manassas, the horrors he witnessed during the battle, the disorganized retreat of the Union troops, and the forty-mile march back to Washington immediately following the battle.
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By Liz Francis, Intern

In this four-page letter Hannah Stevenson writes to her family about her work as a nurse at Columbia College Hospital in Washington during the early months of the Civil War. She describes the suffering of the young soldiers in her care and “how ignorantly careless of their health their commanders have been.” Hannah laments the hazards many of the soldiers encounter in the hospitals, including disease, mistreatment by superiors, hunger, and homesickness, while celebrating the soldiers' dedication to the Union cause and the endless work of her fellow nurses “whose muscles never surrender” to the demands of the work.
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By Elaine Grublin

In this four-page letter, written 29 September 1861, Howard Dwight relates the state of Union affairs in Missouri to his father, William Dwight, Sr. Having recently arrived in St. Louis, Howard shares his thoughts about the command of Major General John C. Frémont and his own attempts to secure a commission from Frémont.
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By Joan Fink, Volunteer

In this seven-page letter to his mother, Harriet Sears Crowninshield, Captain Caspar Crowninshield of the 20th Regiment Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry describes in great detail his experiences on the field during the Battle of Ball's Bluff. Writing on 22 October 1861, the day after the battle, Crowninshield tells his mother that he and his men "stood firm and fought bravely" amid the confusion of the battle in which Union forces suffered large casualties. He also comments on witnessing the death of Colonel (Senator) Edward D. Baker, who "behaved with the utmost Courage and coolness all through the fight."
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By Liz Francis, Intern

In this four-page letter dated 15 November 1861, Boston lawyer Horatio Woodman aims to convince Massachusetts governor John A. Andrew that the Union army must capture Texas in order to end the Confederate rebellion.
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By Liz Francis, Intern

In this six-page letter dated 19 December 1861, John Call Dalton, Jr. (1825-1889), an army surgeon, writes to his brother Charles Henry Dalton (1826-1908), assistant quartermaster-general of the Massachusetts militia, from his position at Hilton Head, South Carolina. In the letter Dalton describes collecting souvenirs inside the recently captured Fort Walker, references the beginning of the siege of Fort Pulaski in Georgia, and makes observations about the local enslaved men interacting with the Union army.
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By Joan Fink, Volunteer

In this letter of 31 January 1862 to his brother, Robert, Lieutenant Charles Fessenden Morse, gives a detailed description of the poor conditions that the Second Regiment Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry endured during the long winter months of 1862, and tells of the adventuresome journey he shared with his good friend and fellow officer, Lieutenant Robert Gould Shaw when they secured a brief leave from their military duties to visit friends stationed in Annapolis.
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By Zachary Reisch, Intern

When Charles Francis Adams (1807-1886) penned this letter to Richard Henry Dana, Jr. on 6 February 1862, the diplomatic maelstrom caused by the so-called Trent Affair had already passed, temporarily securing Great Britain’s continued neutrality in the American Civil War. In this letter, Adams, the American minister in Great Britain, writes to Dana, considered by many to be America’s foremost expert on maritime law at that time, expressing his view that the British government’s reaction to the Trent Affair was typical of that nation’s traditionally profit-oriented foreign policy. Stating that he believes this policy could, as in the past, have unfortunate consequences for Great Britain, Adams outlines for Dana the “desperate quibbles” Britain presented in defense of her position on the Trent Affair, and offers counterarguments for each point.
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By Joan Fink, Volunteer

On 14 March 1862, Captain Richard Cary of the Second Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry Regiment wrote this eight-page letter to his wife Helen. In this letter Captain Cary references the battle between the Monitor and the Merrimack (rechristened by the Confederates as the CSS Virginia), and meeting John Wilkes Booth. The letter also describes how a group of soldiers under Captain Cary's command occupied and looted a plantation deserted by everyone except the slaves. Captain Cary and his men found ham, corn bread, and native wine, which the Captain brought back to company headquarters hidden underneath his overcoat to "keep it from the gaze of envious or objecting eyes" (page 3).
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By Joan Fink, Volunteer

"The Waterloo of this hemisphere" is the description used by Lieutenant Horace Newton Fisher to portray the devastation wrought by the Battle of Shiloh in this 8 April 1862 letter. Lieutenant Fisher, an aide-de-camp on the staff of Brigadier General William Nelson, wrote this letter to John Ward, a family friend living in Louisville, Kentucky, in hopes that Mr. Ward would telegraph Fisher's family in Massachusetts to notify them that he had escaped with "not even scratches." In addition to supplying estimates of the number of casualties for both the Union and Confederate armies, Lieutenant Fisher relates how he narrowly missed having his head shot off by a cannonball.
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By Joan Fink, Volunteer

In this 24 May 1862 letter to Ruth Ann Prouty, Charles Barnard Fox, a lieutenant in the Thirteenth Regiment Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, describes for his future wife an encounter with "Old Abe." On 23 May 1862, President Lincoln reviewed the First Corps of the Army of the Potomac, which at that time included the Thirteenth Massachusetts. Lincoln routinely reviewed the army in order to inspect the troops, in addition to boosting morale and demonstrating his appreciation for their sacrifice. Lieutenant Fox, in a candid moment of levity, opines that President Lincoln was "not likely to be hung for his beauty." However, he notes that Lincoln had a "good honest face" and appeared to be a man that would "do his duty as he sees it, to the best of his ability."
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By Elaine Grublin

In this three-page letter, dated 27 June 1862, Corporal Julius M. Lathrop describes the death of Private George H. Baxter in a skirmish at Tranter’s Creek, near Washington, North Carolina. Lathrop, a friend and fellow soldier in the Twenty-Fourth Regiment Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, did not witness Baxter’s death, but prompted by a request from Baxter’s brother, Lathrop “ascertained the following particulars” from Sergeant George W. Nichols, who was fighting beside Baxter when he received his mortal wound.
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By Joan Fink, Volunteer

Politicians should keep to politics and let the military handle its own affairs. That is the philosophy espoused by Captain George H. Johnston, a Bostonian serving as assistant adjutant general to Brigadier General Henry Naglee, in this 15 July 1862 letter to his wife, Amanda. Writing at the close of the failed Peninsular Campaign, Captain Johnston offers a description of the current state of the Army of the Potomac and his opinion on what must be done in order for the Union to win the war.
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By Joan Fink, Volunteer

In her journal, Lucy Larcom, a poet, editor, and educator, often reflected on the causes and potential consequences of the Civil War. Writing on 21 August 1862, Larcom noted her thoughts after attending a war rally held in Newburyport, Massachusetts, and expressed concern about the impending draft and the emergence of the bounty system as a means of recruiting volunteer soldiers. Two days later, she wrote of viewing the Swift-Tuttle comet —“this strange freak of the sky”— and shared her thoughts on current news about emancipation and Union Army leadership.
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By Joan Fink, Volunteer

“The battle field presents an awful spectacle this morning & the ground for miles is covered with dead & wounded in many places 3 & 4 deep.” This is how William Clark Hawes, of Milford, Massachusetts, described the scene before him on the morning of 15 September 1862 after a long day of fighting in the Battle of South Mountain during the Antietam Campaign (page 7). Hawes, a private in the Eighth Battery Massachusetts Light Artillery Volunteer Militia, kept a diary that provides a detailed account of the critical days between 14 and 19 September when General George B. McClellan and the Army of the Potomac confronted Confederate General Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia in and around Sharpsburg, Maryland.
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By Joan Fink, Volunteer

While his ship, the USS Albatross, is in quarantine off the coast of Pensacola, Florida, John Eliot Parkman writes a serial letter, spanning from 21 to 30 October 1862, to his sister Elizabeth living in Boston. Writing with his trademark wit and humor, Parkman shows a range of emotions -- from homesickness to excitement to anger and frustration – as he describes the conditions aboard the ship, remarks on current events, and ruminates about what the future holds for the country.
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By Claire Arnold, Intern

In this chatty letter to her sister Henrietta, Elizabeth Sedgwick Child writes with family news, sisterly advice, and a description of her recent charitable work cutting material to be made into “picturesque” suits for slave women seeking refuge with the Union Army.
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By Claire Arnold, Intern

Writing from his home on Temple Place on 7 December 1862, Boston lawyer William H. Gardiner relays news from home to his "dear travellers," daughter Mary and her husband William Nye Davis. Flavored by his conservative politics, Gardiner’s accounts of political and military activities reveal his assessment of the Union's prospects as 1862 draws to a close, carrying with it dissension among the Union Army’s generals, questions about how to finance the war, and the prospect of immediate emancipation in January 1863.
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By Claire Arnold, Volunteer

In this letter written to his mother, Rachel Spofford Heald, on 25 January 1863, Daniel H. Spofford, a private in Company H of the First Regiment Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, describes the futility and frustration of the so-called Mud March conducted by General Ambrose Burnside, then the Commander of the Army of the Potomac, just a few days prior. He also shares some details of his life in camp, including a visit to the hospital, a description of his winter quarters, and the predictions of a spiritual medium, also a private in Company H, regarding the close of the war.
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Claire Arnold, Intern

In this endearing letter, Frederic Augustus James writes to his five-year-old daughter Molly from his post aboard the USS Housatonic. With the tenderness of a father long separated from his children, James writes conversationally, avoiding talk of war and reporting on the interesting things he sees in his travels.
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By Joan Fink, Volunteer

In this 15 March 1863 letter to Colonel Francis L. Lee, Grace Heath, a Boston socialite, describes various events occurring in and around Boston during the winter months of that year. Heath, who was described by her aunt Susan Heath as being “full of talk,” energetically recalls the near hysteria caused by General George B. McClellan’s visit to Boston, the formation of the Union Club, and the social and romantic events occurring in the lives of several of Lee’s friends and acquaintances.
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By Joan Fink, Volunteer

“I think they have as much to fear from the Avarice of the North, as of the South, for the position and opportunity to accumulate rapid fortunes, would apt to prove too much and corrupt good men and of course, bring the worst out of bad men.” Writing from Beaufort, South Carolina in April of 1863, Francis J. Meriam shares his personal observations relating to the management of both black and white regiments, as well as the abilities of white commanding officers with Dr. Daniel Thayer, a homeopathic physician and fellow abolitionist from Boston. Meriam also articulates his concern for the economic plight of the freed slaves and worries that even with a Northern victory, they would fall into the condition of “degraded peasantry.”
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By Joan Fink, Volunteer

Writing to a brother of Private Stephen Goodhue Emerson on 15 May 1863, Reverend Warren H. Cudworth, chaplain of the First Regiment Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, states his assumption that Emerson had been taken prisoner by the Confederates earlier in the month. Emerson and his fellow soldiers in Company H of the First Massachusetts were in the thick of the action during the Battle of Chancellorsville and Emerson was last seen on the third of May. At the time Cudworth writes, his ultimate fate was unknown.
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By Clair Arnold  and Joan Fink

In this June 1863 diary entry, Lucy Lord Howes describes her capture by the crew of the Confederate commerce raider CSS Florida. Howes and her civilian husband Captain Benjamin Howes were aboard the merchant ship Southern Cross, returning from Mazatlan, Mexico, with a cargo of brazilwood, when they encountered the Confederate ship. Howes describes how she and her husband, along with the other officers and crew, were forced to board the Florida under adverse conditions, carrying minimal personal effects, before the Southern Cross was looted and burned.
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Joan Fink, Volunteer

In this 5 July 1863 letter, Caleb Beal, a second lieutenant in the 107th New York Volunteer Infantry Regiment, writes to his parents from the battlefield in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. Beal vividly describes the devastation wrought by this grueling, three-day battle, noting that he saw “dead rebels by hundreds laying just as they fell among the muck and the trees.”
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Joan Fink, Volunteer

In her journal entries for 6 to 8 August 1863, Caroline Healey Dall, an American feminist, essayist, and reformer, writes of visiting with various members of the family of Robert Gould Shaw, late colonel of the 54th Regiment Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry. She describes in poignant fashion how his parents and sisters coped with the news of his death in the Battle of Fort Wagner on 18 July 1863.
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By Amanda Loewy, Intern

On 6 September 1863, Andrew R. Linscott, a young soldier from Woburn, Massachusetts, wrote to his parents about life as a soldier in the 39th Regiment Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry. After declaring he does not “feel like writing,” Linscott goes on to pen four pages discussing topics ranging from his own health and weight, to his opinion of a letter written by President Abraham Lincoln, as well as his hopes for a successful fall campaign and a quick end to the war.
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By Elaine Heavey

In a three-page letter written in late October 1863, young Edward Peirce of Lowell, Massachusetts, reassures his mother that he is safe, comfortable, and eager for more news from home, as he awaits his muster into active service. Peirce offers a vivid picture of his daily life at Camp Meigs, the busiest of Massachusetts’ military camps, located in Readville, in the Hyde Park neighborhood of Boston.
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By Joan Fink, Volunteer

In this letter written in November 1863 to his oldest sister Martha, Edward J. Bartlett of Concord, Massachusetts, describes his work recruiting black soldiers for the Union army. He discusses the frustrating bureaucracy complicating his work, and excitedly reports on the high numbers of potential recruits eager to leave their masters and join the Union cause.
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By Joan Fink, Volunteer

In this letter of 8 January 1864, Massachusetts Congressman Samuel Hooper writes to Dr. Jonathan Mason Warren, a prominent Boston physician, urging Warren to denounce as a fraud a printed circular in support of Surgeon General William Hammond, who was in the midst of court-martial proceedings.
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By Joan Fink, Volunteer

"I think in most points we have the best non-commissioned officers in the reg't" writes eighteen-year-old Edward L. Edes, a newly promoted corporal in the 33rd Regiment Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry in this 28 February 1864 letter to his mother, Mary, describing in detail the personalities of the sergeants and the other non-commissioned officers stationed with him in Lookout Valley, Tennessee.
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By Joan Fink, Volunteer

"The Officers & men mean to have a good time, as long as they can, & I don't blame them. They see hardships enough," wrote Mary Ellen Baker Pierce of Boston, Massachusetts, in this 8 March 1864 letter to her sister, Julia, from the winter headquarters of the 13th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry Regiment in Culpeper, Virginia. Captain Elliot Clark Pierce, Mary's husband, had brought her to camp for a three month visit from January 1864 to April 1864, while he was serving as Chief of the 1st Ambulance Corps. Since the Civil War was fought on American soil, it provided a unique opportunity for spouses and other family members to visit soldiers in camp. These visits, often lasting for extended periods of time, occurred when the troops were not actively engaged in combat, usually during the winter months.
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By Joan Fink, Volunteer

"Here is Grant, with his utterly immovable face, going about from Culpepper to Washington & back and sending no end of cipher messages, all big with strategy," writes Theodore Lyman, a lieutenant colonel in the Union Army, in this 18 April 1864, letter to his wife, Elizabeth, describing the newly appointed general-in-chief of the Union Army, Lieutenant General Ulysses S. Grant.
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By Joan Fink, Volunteer

On 20 and 25 May 1864, Stephen Minot Weld, Jr., a twenty-two-year-old lieutenant colonel serving in the 56th Regiment Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, wrote two separate letters to his father detailing his involvement in the battles of Spotsylvania Court House and North Anna, both parts of Ulysses S. Grant's Overland Campaign. Weld's younger sister Alice carefully hand-copied both letters into a single document in order to share them with their oldest sister, Hannah, who was living in Baltimore, Maryland. As a result, the letter featured here offers not only a soldier's view of battle, but also reflects the emotion and concern carried by so many soldiers' siblings throughout the war.
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By Elaine Heavey

In three text-packed diary pages covering the month of June 1864, 31-year-old prisoner of war Frederic Augustus James provides a glimpse into the most horrific prisoner of war camp of the Civil War: Camp Sumter, Andersonville, Georgia. James writes mostly about day to day activities, noting the weather, what rations were served, and prices set for sundries sold within the camp. He also mentions larger happenings that affect the prisoners as a whole, like the expansion of the stockade and the roundup of the internal gang of "raiders" in late June.
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By Joan Fink, Volunteer

This 17 July 1864 letter offers the rather unique perspective of one soldier writing to another, while both men are serving at the front in different theaters of the war. Writing from Vinings, Georgia, as his regiment participates in the Atlanta Campaign, George Augustine Thayer, a captain in the 2nd Regiment Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry corresponds with Lorin Low Dame who is serving in New Orleans. The letter conveys Thayer's pride and frustration as he shares his thoughts about the leadership of the Union Army, the bounty system, and the progress of his current campaign.
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By Joan Fink, volunteer

"Yesterday I was about half dead. Today I am just about half alive and the Capt is about as I was yesterday," writes Lieutenant Flavel King Sheldon in this 2 August 1864 letter to his parents. Sheldon, a member of the 37th Regiment Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, describes the brutally hot conditions that he and his fellow soldiers endured while maneuvering in northern Virginia, and expresses his frustration with army leadership for sending all of the men of the Sixth Corps of the Army of the Potomac on fruitless campaigns in the scorching heat.
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By Joan Fink, Volunteer

In this letter of 21 September 1864 William C. Endicott writes to Robert C. Winthrop, praising the latter's recent speech. Winthrop delivered a keynote address four days earlier at a meeting held in New York City in support of George B. McClellan, the Democratic presidential candidate in the election of 1864.
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By Joan Fink, Volunteer

"Men cannot be soldiers without being free, and to ask a black man to fight to sustain slavery was out of the question," opines Fanny Chapin Hooper, a native of Boston, Massachusetts, in this 12 October 1864 letter to Lilian Freeman Clarke. Fanny formulated her views after reading a series of Richmond Enquirer articles, reprinted in the New York Times, endorsing the arming of the slaves for the Confederate Army.
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By Joan Fink, Volunteer

On 27 November 1864, sitting in the relative comfort of his winter quarters in Fort Cummings, Virginia, Private Warren Goodale of the 11th Regiment Massachusetts Light Artillery writes to his children describing in great detail his newly constructed winter home and regaling them with tales of how he passed his time and filled his belly on Thanksgiving Day.
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By Joan Fink, Volunteer

"The sight was superb; from the roof of the City Hall we could see the whole City in flames at once, great tongues of fire leaping up into the air 50 or 100 feet above the roofs, whole blocks falling in with a crash that sent a fiery cloud of cinders up, up, up, till they seemed to mingle with the stars," writes Samuel Storrow, a Bostonian serving with the 2nd Regiment Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry in this lengthy letter begun on 24 December 1864. Using his diary as a reference, Storrow provides his mother with a month's worth of stories about his participation in Sherman's March to the Sea, beginning with the burning of Atlanta. Well-read and gifted with the pen, Storrow brings the rice swamps and towns the Union army passed through to life as he describes the landscapes, weather, and people he encountered on the way to Savannah.
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By Sara Georgini, Adams Papers

Writing across the Atlantic to his family stationed in Europe, Union soldier Charles Francis Adams, Jr., reports here on his new duties commanding an African-American regiment at the Confederate prisoner-of-war hospital in Point Lookout, Md. With his own health nearly broken by a recent bout with malaria, Adams struggles to professionalize his new corps. And, as the conflict winds to a bloody close, Adams reassures his mother that Southern prisoners are receiving adequate treatment from a federal government still capable of "Christian spirit & forbearance." Knowing that "war is cruel in all its parts," Charles was determined to confirm that years of bloodshed had been followed by measures of Northern mercy.
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Joan Fink, Volunteer
 

"As the official information of the signing of the amendment to the Constitution by the President abolishing slavery forever in the States came yesterday, a salute of 100 guns was fired on the Common and the bells of the City rung one hour by request of the Governor," writes William Gray Brooks, a Boston merchant, in his diary entry for 2 February 1865, describing the euphoric reaction of many in the city of Boston to the news of the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.
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Joan Fink, Volunteer



"Tell anybody who has anything to give to give now. I don't hesitate either to ask or to beg," implores Dorothea Lynde Dix, the Superintendent of Army Nurses, in this 29 March 1865 letter to her friend, Mary. Dix both thanks Mary for food stuffs she has already sent, and entreats her to gather more food and other supplies and forward them to the front.
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Joan Fink, Volunteer


In this letter, begun in the early hours of 15 April 1865, a shaken Sarah Swain Hathaway Forbes describes the unfolding details of President Abraham Lincoln's assassination for her daughter Mary. Earlier in the evening, Forbes had been rolling bandages for wounded soldiers while her son John Malcolm Forbes attended Ford's Theater in hopes of seeing General Grant, who was rumored to be attending the production of Our American Cousin with President and Mrs. Lincoln. Forbes's letter captures the chaos that descended upon the city as rumors about Lincoln's condition and of attacks on other notable men swirled through the streets.
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