Item No. 6731340

This archive includes 13 wardate letters written by Private Alfred A. Thayer of Company B, 96th Ohio Infantry, written between September 1862 and May 1865. The letters include Thayer’s account of fighting during Sherman’s expedition to Jackson, scouting in Texas, the Red River Campaign, his time in a New Orleans hospital, and operations against Mobile. Thayer’s first letter was written just two weeks after his enlistment. With barely any training, the regiment was rushed Cincinnati following Confederate General E. Kirby Smith’s victory at Richmond, Kentucky. From Covington, Thayer writes:

We expect a fight here every day. The people are going to draft here today every able man, & right soon… The people are scared bad, but I ain’t… We expect the rebels here tonight. We are ready for them. About ten those men here now.

In the next letter, written in July 1863, Thayer discusses the regiment’s role in the July 10 fighting at Jackson, Mississippi, following the surrender of Vicksburg:

We left Vicksburg on the 5 & marched 4 days, distant 50 miles. Then our brigade was thrown in line of battle, then threw out our skirmishers in the advance, then ordered forward. Then the grape began to come thick, but there was but one shot that done any harm. That went whistling through among us pretty sharp [but] only killed one man. We went on in a cornfield & ordered to lay down. We layed there 4 hours. We were pretty near melted. Then we were ordered back behind a fence. The reb pickets made several charges on our pickets, but they drove them back. We have been called up in line every few minutes expecting to be attacked, but haven’t yet. Nothing more than picket fighting. On Sunday morning we had a general advance all around the lines & drove them back, so we advanced 400 yards. Now we have breastworks built to protect us. They had a fight on the right & took one thousand prisoners & made a charge on the left. The loss [was] pretty bad on both sides. They came out with the white flag to bury their dead, then commenced again. There will be a very heavy fight. We had this place once, but had to leave for Vicksburg. I wish they had burnt it to the ground. It is the county seat of Mississippi, but they will have to lose it again before long.

Back in Vicksburg, Thayer writes in the November 25, 1863, letter:

When Silas Ashton left the regiment he left a letter under his knapsack & said he was sick of the service & was going to drown himself in the river. I guess he didn’t do that, but don’t tell Ashton’s folks.

From Decros Point, Texas, on January 20, 1864, he writes:

Well Annie, we have been having pretty good times for a few days, but the hard [work] commences again today. We are to start on a march today at 11 o’clock & are ordered to take seven days rations with us. We carry 3 days with us & get the rest hauled. I wish that we could get out of old Banks’s department, for as long as we are with him we will have all the scouting to do because he is an eastern man, & [so are] the rest of his men excepting our division, so he puts them through. I heard that we were going back to U. S. Grant & hope it may be so. I heard that General Banks said that he could not do anything with us, but we would follow U. S. Grant to hell… The eastern boys is afraid of us. They almost afraid to say their souls are there, but we wouldn’t hurt them. Our old Cap. came out at roll call this morning & told us that we would be apt to get some rebels or they would be apt to get us.

During his service, Thayer would twice be hospitalized—between August and December 1863 at Memphis, and again between March and September 1864, at Marion Hospital in New Orleans. From New Orleans on April 2, 1864, he jokes:

Tell Em that there is no danger of Dan getting married unless him & me make a match. But tell her if she is a good girl that I won’t have him so as to give her the next chance, for she will be his next choice. Annie, I keep in just as good spirits as though I was at home, if I never mean to worry myself to death about anything.

In the same letter we get a glimpse into the struggles on the home front. Thayer’s older brother Isaiah “Jack” Thayer had enlisted in the same company of the 96th, and had had been killed April 2, 1863, at Milliken’s Bend, Louisiana. Jack’s wife Hannah (Crowell) Thayer had evidently left her children with Thayer’s parents and brother-in-law Ezra. Records indicate Hannah Thayer would die nineteen months later. In his letter Thayer writes:

But it beat me to think that Hannah had gone to keeping house again. Did she really take the children away from Ezra & father & mother? I suppose she thought that she was more capable of raising them than they was. Poor woman. I pity her. You can tell her that I can do nothing towards getting that money for her. She will have to get it at home. If I could I would do it cheerful. It one year today since poor Jack died.

Also in the same letter Thayer writes about the results of the Red River Campaign:

Annie, it would beat you to go through this hospital to see the little boys—lots of them not but 12 & 15—& the talk is that they are all getting discharged. I think the man that enlisted them ought to pay back the money that has been paid them. They are from New York & Maine, but this hospital is noted from them to places. Lots of them hasn’t been [in] the service only 7 months. That is the way that the government is [a] swindle. There is agoing to be something done on the Potomac this summer, for General Grant has called his western boys to the Potomac. I am glad I belong to the western army if they have the most fighting to do, for General Grant says they are the boys can do it. Annie, they have had a fight & our division was in it, but I don’t know whether our regt was or not, but I expect it was. The rebels had 12 thousand & our men 8 thousand, but they had a hard fight. They fought for three days, but the rebels had to run with a pretty heavy loss. But our loss was not so large. I don’t know just what the loss was but about 60 wounded slightly. Poor boys. I think of them, but that does them no good, & the weather has been very bad. It has rained a good deal & been cold & windy—regular March weather. I wish I was with them if I was able, for there is no place to me like the regt. It is hard to tell when I will get to it now, but I hope soon.

While complaining about the “poor grub” received at the hospital, he writes:

…they cheat the soldier out of his rations & sell them & put the money in their pocket, I would like to see all these rascals put before a battery & have the battery loaded with grape & canister & truth of but they are so hard I don’t know as it would have any effect.

In a letter dated May 18, 1864, Thayer has advice for young family members who are considering enlistment in the army:

I was sorry to hear that Albert Charley was so foolish. Tell Albert that if his name is off [the rolls], my advice is to never have it on again. Now Al, if you don’t take my advice you may wish to you had when it is too late. God knows I wouldn’t give you bad advice if I knew it. Annie, you tell him what I say. Tell him that he little knows what we have to go through. Lay in the mud & rain & lots of things worse than that, & if he was to go through this hospital & see men suffering in all shapes it would be enough for him. All I have seen & experienced, all these things, if I was at home money wouldn’t tempt me. It will be very bad if some of them home companies have to go, but it takes men to do the work, not boys, & the sooner they get out the sooner it will be over, & that is what I want to see—this cruel war over.

In the same letter he writes of Red River:

You spoke of not getting a correct account of the battle. Neither have we, nor don’t expect to, for it was so badly managed that they will keep it from being known if possible. But our regt only lost 50.  8 killed that they know of. The rest is supposed to be prisoners. We get a different report nearly every day about the Army of Red River. It was reported that they were surrounded & all communication cut off, but I guess they have got one side clear from the Rebs, but can’t write with any certainty.

Writing still from New Orleans on June 22, 1864, Thayer writes about staying on as a nurse:

Annie we have had a general examination here, nurses & all. Put a good many in the Invalid Corps & furloughed a good many & discharged a good many who they call the nurses of our ward. The 3 first got put in the Invalid Corps & I was 4, so I thought because I was so fat that they would send me to the regt, for they were 3 majors Dr, but I went up & put on a smile & they looked at me & said “you are most well, ain’t you?” & I said “yessir,” & the old head Dr said, “mark him to be kept as nurse.” So you see the difference between a long face & a smile? It may be that I get to go to St. Louis, for they are going to send the most to northern hospitals. There is one lot going I expect tomorrow, but I won’t go with them. We have more empty beds than we have had since I been here. We have 45 now & another lot goes to the Invalid Corps tomorrow.

In the same letter he writes:

Annie, I will have to tell you the joke on me. There was a mulatto girl came up with our wench a few times when she came up to wash the dishes & she told the boys that she liked me, so Sunday after dinner I laid down to sleep & she got a fan & came & see down by my bed & it was very warm & she commenced fanning me so she woke me up & commenced talking to me. I felt pretty cheap, I tell you, & it just tickles the boys the best kind, so I got up & left, but she thinks I am the best looking fellow she ever seen. I have shaved off clean & being in the shade look pretty white for me.

Finally back with the 96th, Thayer writes from Morganza Bend, Louisiana, on October 31, 1864

We went on a scout of 11 days instead of 5, but had nothing to do, only picket & forage a little, but there was pretty sharp shooting. We only got 3 men wounded in our brigade. None in our regt, but we was relieved the 10th day.

In a letter dated May 6, 1865, from near Mobile, Alabama, Thayer writes about the end of the war and the surrender of rebel armies and navies:

I think we will be home by the 4 of July, for I think the war is over now. We can’t find any soldiers here. They have been coming in, giving themselves up. They say the war is played out. There has been several came in since we have been here, but we can’t get any mail & very few papers… Good news here today—the surrender of Johnson’s army. The news is the rebel fleet here has surrendered. It is expected here today. I think we will be in Mobile in a few days. I hope we will. The work on the fort is stopped.

On May 10 he writes about the surrender of a Confederate fleet, perhaps describing the surrender at Nanna Hubba Bluff:

We left McIntosh Bluffs the 9 [and] came down on the rebel fleet. They came down & surrendered to us, 24 boats, 3 gunboats in that number [and] one man-of-war. She was a very good boat—they were a good lot of boats all through. But the regular surrender was today of troops, boats, & all Alabama is gone up. The rebels has played out, but we was a little too much for them all around.

The letters are mostly in very good to excellent condition with light toning and some foxing. Creased at the original folds. All are 3-6 written pages. All but one of the letters includes the original transmittal cover, many stamped and with good postmarks. A full electronic transcript is included with the archive. There is much more interesting content not detailed in this listing.