lynn mentioned, the collection really consists of these five main writers. they're the ones that reallar the the heart andoul of the collection. first, we have rachel jane ward as lynn mentioned, she marries vid walters on december 1h, 1860, becoming rachel walters. sheecomes this nexus of this communication hub. she is one of the most literate of all the writers and in fact, wos as a schoolteacher a year later. and she really is the one that the brothers and brother, her brothers in law and her husband are writing to her. and then she's disseminating that information back to the other brothers and also including messages from what's going on at home, you know, in their county or in their individual houses and anything that will help them stay connected to their home. so she becomes a critical element of this. this group of of letters. next, we have david walters, her husband, who, ln mentioned, joined the fifth indiana calvary. he sves generally in the central area of the country. he isaac wte, who is one of the first of the brothers to join up. he joins the 20th indiana infantry. he serves along the east coast in the eastern theater of the war, mostly in virginia. we have john wesley walters, the youngest of the brothers. he joins the 46th indiana infantry and he's stationed in, at the time, the western theater, which is actually the mississippi river. and these three brothers are literally sent to the three corners of the war. they're as geographically separate as they can be. and it only makes that network of communication even more important. and then finally, we have john louderback. he's in david's company. he eventually becomes the commanding officer of david's company. but through his letters, we were able to decipher that some of david's early letters are most likely written by him. so most likely dictated by david. but written by john louderback to send messages home and the as we follow these letters through the conflicts, you really start to see the individual personalities come through. you see different penmanship, different grammar, different phrases that are used by the writers. for example, this is one of rachel's letters. she uses a blue ink almost exclusively through the war. there's a few th a not. but. but she's really thiss is is one of the ways you could quickly tell that it was one of rachel's letters. an here she draws a piurof a a s. flag with the words union forever on it. this is the only one that she lustrated. but again, it it gest such a personal touch. it it's so important to to see who these people were, what, you know, why were they writing these letters and it's it again, they really become these individuals instead of just, you know, kind of random pieces of paper. so although we have numerous letters in the collection, we've selected a few highlights, too, to present to you tonight to show you again who who this family was, who, who these people were. so the first one we have here is from isaac walters. he is described as being five foot ten inches with dark hair and gray eyes, a very basic description at the time. when he joins up, he's unmarried. he's just shy of his 29th birthday. he's the first of the walters brothers to join the union army. he joins company f of the 20th indiana. as we mentioned, he officially musters in on july 22nd, 1861. and this is the first letter that we have in the collection. the first one that he sent home, dated octobe 17th, 1861. so between that time, he is in training camp in indiana before his unit is aga shipped out to the east coast. and he actually finds himself in the eastern theer of war along some of the coastal islands of north carolina. the union makes an effort early in the war to capture some of those islands, to protect naval assets that were going to be going up and down the coast. and he is involved in some of these very early campaigns. and he he also so in this letter, one of the first things he specifically mentions is news that he had received most likely from rachel in a previous letter, which is not in the collection. and he writes about heentions news from home and says, quote, i was a little surprised to hear that you had an air so soon, but i hopeou willive and do well in order that dave will have somebody to set up corn for him. i fancy his name very much. i believe it is the very name that i would have given him myself. so what he's responding to is the fact that david and rachel had had a son, willard, who you'd seen in that previous picture. and they had obviously just informed isaac of his birth. so, again, you're already starting to see this network forming the the importance of these letters as they're sharing information back and forth. isaac goes on to give some detail about what he's experienced back to the family, describing his experiences in north carolina. he writes, there was nearly half of the regiment taking medicine at the present time, and there is still more taking sick. this is a very sickly whole. so that's not how most people would describe hatteras nowadays. but at the time this was what he experienced. there was great sickness there and his regiment really suffered. why they were there. so this really is a the start of a grueling campaign for the 20th indiana. they end up fighting in some of the fiercest battles of the civil war. and isaac takes part in many of them. so this kind of beginning stage of the war for him, definitely leads to to more serious combat later. almost a year after the letter by isaac. two of his brothers join up. they both fall into, including the oldest brother of the walter's eli walter's, who joins with isaac in the 20 at the indiana. their third brother in line wine. david walter's joins in september of 1862 with the fifth indiana calvary. and it's shortly thereafter that he reports to camp joe reynolds in indianapolis over 100 miles from his home, leaving his wife and his infant son. from the records, we know a little bit about david walters and his time with the fifth indiana calvary. we find a little bit about his past in the military records as well, that he was a farmer, that he was 23 years of three years of age when he volunteered that like his brother isaac, he was also five foot ten, had a dark complexion and dark hair and brown eyes. so those are the only ways that we have to picture. david, other than his letters. we do know that once he reached indianapolis, he was soon put through the paces of drilling. and he writes this to his wife about this. this would prepare him with the fifth indiana calvary and the duties that they would soon have through the middle of the country. and later in the war, preparing for the campaign through georgia at the time that he writes this in october. first, he writes to his wife about some of the excitement of his having with these new events and having joined and becoming a soldier. he writes, quote, we are drilling about as strong as ever we can. and yesterday, there was about 6000 on drill. at one time. and today we had about the same number of soldiers and about 30 to 40000 spectators. we had the biggest time today that we had sinc i've been he. we had a regular sham battle and fired about 25 rounds apiece. and there was infantry and calvary and two cannon. and the engagement. and there was also a general two of yound the governor. and he goes on to tell his wife the reasons why he had volunteered and the moment he writes, i quote, i'm sorry that your put so much trouble with our things. it can't be help now. and i feel i'm doing my duty to help and maintain the laws of our country and put down the wicked rebellion. it's one of the few times in the series of about 18 letters we have in the collection that he discusses the reason why he has joined up and in a way, the void that he enclosed this kind of echoes what he is saying in the letter with the patriotic symbols that it has on it. at theenter of it is a american eagle and the seal of the u.s. around it are 34 pennants with abbreviaons for 34 states, including all of the states that had recently seceded during the war. and just a few days time, his wife was writing a letter at home and 20 year old and raising their one year old willie. she was writing about her new experience of moving from royals center in their home that she had shared with david to star city closer to some of her other family members. she discusses going to church and the things about farming. and again, as tom pointed out, using her blue ink, that was very common. this is one of the letters that is available to see in the gallery this evening and shows this side of the page of a two sided page. well worn and likely to have been re read as she wrote to david about what was going on at home. she wrote, i quote, william, he's not very well and he's cutting his teeth, which makes him very fretful, but he's getting better. so he can go down and play a little. and i hope these lines reach you and that you find you will. i received two letters today and one from you lately was last thursday evening and one on monday evening. that was the one that you sent that was directed to royal center and then was re mailed when it was sent on to star city. and like many conventions of the time, she does keep recounting about the way the mail was moving and her kind of duty and being a good letter writer. and she closes with saying, quote, i must close. is there waiting to take the letter to the office. and willie is crying for me to take him. so please write soon as you get this. and that pleading for more letters is a common thread throughout the walters family. several months later, rachel receives a letter from john wesley. he is described as similar to isaac, though he's shorter at five foot six. he's the youngest of the brothers. he's only 20 years old. when he joins the regiment. during the 46 indiana, he mustered into union service in october of 1861 and receives training in indiana before again joining the union army, moving down the mississippi river. he is he and his unit are actively engaged in several of the early battles in that that theater, including a battle for island number ten, which was a fortified island. the confederate army had built up to try to prevent any ships from going by that they fight to to take to open up the way the this specific letter written june 10th, 1863. details some of the nonstop campaigning that john weey had experienced with his unit. and he uses this letter to inform the famy of wod he had received. he writes, we found them. i found them referring tthe confederate army at a place called the champions hill. there is where got wounded. a musket ball struck me on my right side, just above the hip. we lay there three weeks. this letter helped dispel some rumors that had reached indiana that he'd actually been killed in the battle champion hill battle that preceded what would be the siege of vicksburg and the the this ability to send that home certainly must have relieved those. and to dispel such a rumor, he also explains in this letter that after being kind of stuck at the on the battlefield for so long, he is eventually moved to a a larger hospital in memphis to recover. he also relays to rachel how glad he was to have received a letter from her and received news from back home. he writes. you also spoke about david. i'm glad you told me where he is. i wrote him a long letter if he gets it. i want you to let me know what he thought of it. so again, this this is another example of just how important this this network is to the brothers. not only are they receiving news from home, but one of the quickest way for them to receive news from the other brothers is to go receive it from from rachel. so they're they're literally using her as kind of the the middle two to get that information back. and forth. he his unit goes on to participate in the siege of vicksburg, as i mentioned. he, however, does not. it takes him some time to recover from the wounds he received at champions hill. he's placed in some roles guarding railroads and whatnot behind the union lines as he recovers from that. but rachel continues to write to isaac and john wesley throughout their service. again, acting as this this nexus. and she, of course, continues to write to david while he's in the field. so this letter that we selected from rachel to david is about a year after that one from john wesley. it's mid-may 1864, and her life is rather busy on the home front. she's again sharing all the news about the family, the health of the neighbors. and is talking aut the union cause. but much of it focuses on f. and there's many things that she's doing. so'll read you a long passage at she has and let h wds speak for themselves. quote, i'm still trying to teach ol. and therospect begins to look a little fairer. my school averagfr about 20 to 4 to about 28. this week. it looks aite more encouraging. and this saturday, i've been covering the corn for pap and about for noon. and i expect to help this afternoon as well. he's got about 18 acres planted and i don't know how much he's going to plant really wl. and he's well pleased to see me come home. we always nso me and he ss that he's mama's boy and pies boy. and he says the pause down in dixie ghng rebels. and so i asked him what he thought about pie and what would perfection wheheame home. and he said he thought the pinewood fetch him some little boots. but i'm ready now to go out to the field. and so i must finish this a little while later. and she does too. you. continues the letter the next day on may 15th, this time telling david about visiting his sister martha. she tells them about a letter that she received from his sister emeline and we do have correspondence from both of those sisters in the collection as well. but it's a closing that she uses at the end of this may 15th letter in which she writes again about sort of the receiving the letters and the timeline. and she writes, quote, i will close hoping to hear from you as soon as possible and try to write oftener as i have been trying to do. i'll send you a few stamps in this letter. i will send you more at the time, but i'm afraid you might not get them. and in some ways, some of the web, as we were looking at the letters, there were things that were prescient in many of these at the time that she is writing. and may 14, through 15. david is engaged at the battle of masaka in northern georgia. it's a pretty evenly matched battle between the union and the confederate forces. it actually is an inconclusive battle, but his regiment and his company suffer a number of casualty issues, including the capture of david, which we believe happened on may 14th. it's not until later in may. does rachel receive word about david's capture? and this is all through the auspices of his commanding officer, john louderback, who has taken it upon himself to write a letter before he himself is captured at the next battle that the fifth indiana calvary is engaged in and sent on to the anderson prison, andersonville prison. this letter from ice rachel is written only a few months later and he has obviously learned the information about david's capture from rachel. he responds in this letter to offer his condolences that that david had been captured. as we follow this family through the war, through these letters, this one particularly became quite heartbreaking. c's tone shifmatically from some of his early missives in the war to. to this po and you can really start to see how not only the campaigns that he's engaged in are wearing on him, but the news from what's happening to his brothers, what's happening to his family is also starting to weigh on him more and more. he he the condolences he offers are as such. quote, i feel very sorry for you that you can't hear from david. you must be on great suspense and you must feel very lonely. but you must look upon the brht side oficture and hope for the best. i think he will turn up all if the gray bas n't starve to death and i hope they will it.l in this if they undertake i think das a pretty good constitution and will get through. all right. if he is only alive. so again, this just this small, you know, portion of the letter just showcases, again, the suffering that, you know, isaac is feeling for his brother and being so far from home, being unable to know how his brother's doing and that his one connection is rachel. the the war weariness that that isaac is suffering comes through also. and later in this letter, he writes, i think the war will close sometime or never if it never closes, i guess there is no danger of us poor soldiers getting out of a job. i will close for the present, hoping soon to hear from you. and this. the sullen attitude most likely comes from the fact that his unit had not been engaged almost continuously in the siege of petersburg city in richmond, which the union army was attempting to capture. and then capturing richmond, virginia, the capital, the confederacy. so he even writes that he's located in the camp during the siege at that time. so the war is again weighing heavily on isaac as as all the family, as it continues, as the the suffering continues for the family. this letter written about a year later by john lauterbach to rachel walters, is represents the type of letter that no one nt to receive during the w, but so many did. he is writing to rachel to inform her of the death of her husband during the civil war. there was no formal way for families to be informed of such matters. oftentimes times, casualties from units would be published in local newspapers, or it was up to a commanding officer to write home to provide such details. lauterbach starts the letter b not weary or troubled. trust in the lord, for he is able to comfort. he continues, i think i am safe in saying that your husband, d.w walters, died inebel prison about the 10th of february. i w him aut the fifth. he was done unable to help himself. i waited on him and gaveim as much comfort as i could until i was taken down myself. he oftenpoke of you and his little boy, which he spoke of with a great deal of respect and seemed to be waiting with a great deal of anxiety for the time to come. when the prison doors would be thrown open and he could return to his loved ones at home. but alas, the small amount of meal that he was allowed was not sufficient for him. i did not see him die myself, but i have been told by competent persons that he died about the time that i have stated. captain lauterbach goes on to provide some basic details, adds rachel, as to how she can start the process to apply for a pension. as a widow, she would be entitled to one, and although she was entitled to one. that process would become a years long time consuming pursuit for her. in part because of duties like captain lauterbach took upon himself that it wasn't a formal situation where there were documentation for it, as he said in a letter, and got her back to the letter. he says he is not completing david's mustering out papers. he's not completing the paperwork for david. and so it's left to rachel to put that together, which this one letter front and back shows us that some of that process went on for four years. the letter on the front side, on the far goes to town over there is rachel writing in response to a letter that she had sent previously to the missing soldiers office in washington, d.c. and she's correcting some information that she needs to to have publish the missing soldiers officer was established in 1865 by clara barton soon after, she finishes her medical assistance work with the union army and she sees that this kind of lack of infmation in a formalized system of telling families about the soldier's status of missing in action, killed in action, and whether they're returning from p.o.w. camps spurs her to start a office that deals with correspondence with veterans and for their families. they devise a way to publicize this by soliciting names from the family to be put into the local newspapers and then soliciting, then the response from veterans to write to the missing soldiers office with any information they may have with their about their comrades. so rachel uses this in a way that is a typical than many of the americans that were writing to the missing soldiers office because unlike some of americans who were looking for their husbands like rachel, were looking for fathers and uncles, she was looking for that information. she already knew. she already knew the outcome for for david what she needed was to have a witness who would be able to put this on paper, that she could secure the money that would support herself and the toddler son willing. so in writing, she wrote to the missing soldiers office to make sure that david's name spelled correctly. they had written to her to say that david walters would be included on one of these roles that would go to the local newspapers. and she corrected them that it had to be david and they flipped the paper over at the office and returned it to her with assurances that, yes, david, w walter's will be listed as a member of the fifth indiana cavalry and it's signed for clara barton in her name by one of the office workers, the missing soldiers office operated for the three years and during that time they connected over 22,000 americans with information about missing soldiers. this took about 100,000 lte that were circulated by the missing soldiers office of iniries that they were sending out. and about personal letts ke the one that they were sending to rachel, including the one here on their letter stationed that mentions that they are the offi o correspondence. and it on this letter they are taking the ttiny of one of the veterans by the name of john brown, who is also from indiana. and sharg tt th rachel, that john brown has informed them that that he saw david d at four in south carolina. this is exactly the kind of information that rachel needed to secure a pension. but upon further work with the pension documents that are in the collection and those that are at the national archives, we know that it wasn't john brown's witness testimony or one of the other letters that we have in the collection, the four through the missing soldiers office, that finally, rachel, the pension there was a third veteran who came forward and gave witness testimony. and so after two years, almost three years of trying, she did secure the pension in september of 1865. sorry, 68. and we know that. only three months later she died, leaving their young son, willy in the care of her parents. samuel ward jr, and her mother sarah. and it's through the pension filing that sarah that rachel did that they were able to support willy with an $8 a month miner's pension. it's those kind of documents that help us put together the story of this family and their experiences through the civil war. and as as rachel is, many parts of this communication network between these brothers, this sisters and other members of their community, what is puzzling in a way, is how did we end up with the letters and how did the walter's family end up with rachel's letters returning from david? and, of course took the efforts of david, certainly to save his letters from rachel. that meant he carried those with him through all the states that he traveled. there's no sign on any of the envelopes that we have in the collection at any point that he say enclosed extra letters of hers and return them back to her. we do have one hint in one of the letters from john lauterbach back now, one where he does inform her of david's death that david's effects are at his own house and she is welcome to come to the lauterbach house and pick up those effects, including a ten case, which i think would have very well preserved these kind of paper records of this family and the words that they exchanged each other, like the mystery of how the letters returned. we, we, we came upon some other mysteries with this this story, with developing this. and one of them was, in fact, the the location of david's death, although we had these affidavits and other testimonies of his death of a prisoner of war camp, there is a headstone located in marietta national cemetery in marietta, georgia, in section a site for 73 that reads david walters company i fifth indiana calvary. and we can assure you there were no other david walters in company i of the fifth indiana calvary. and the site lists the date of death as june 5th, 1864, about three weeks after the date david is reported as captured. so in a time before dog tags dna, there was no way to really identify the dead after a battle other than those who knew them, hopefully being around to do so so. miss ids did happen and it is fully possible that there is somebody else in that grave, but it is still made out to david. so that was something we, you know, we had to to research and puzzle over. we are pretty certain that with the the sheer amount of testimonies that that rachel herself gathered, that, you know, his death did occur in a prisoner of war camp. but it was something to consider that again, there is a grave in georgia. the other item that we couldn't ever locate was, a photograph of any of of the writers of these letters, even though in multiple letters we have them asking for photographs, describing going and getting photographs taken, writing about sending photographs to each other, and then complementing each other photographs. so throughout the letters, we have all of these these comments about photographs of each other. and there are none that we could find. there were the they were none that were included with the donation. there were the family currently did have any they were able to provide us that earlier photo of their son later in life, but nothing from the time period. and when we asked experts in civil war photography, especially at the center for civil war photography, in other places, they mentioned that many photographs not labeled. these were often sent to family members. so why would you label them? but as a result, as soon as those family members passed that that that identity goes with them. so it's not uncommon to have unidentified photographs from the era. and the one that you're looking at right now was recently digitized by library of this is in their cion, and it's simply labeled as an unidentified soldier of the fifth indiana calvary. so this is david's unit. so that be possibly. but we we just don't know. and although the members of the walter's family are faceless to us now, they're voice still lives on, their story still lives on through the letters they saved and through the letters they wrote, they they documented what it was like to live through this terrible time in. american history and their story represents what many families went through during this time. and it was such a privilege for us to be able to really down into this story and to share it with you all. thank you. thank you. so hoping to take a q&a and i know we have a microphone in the audience because we're also on zoom online. so the microphone will be going around the audience and i know there's also potentially online questions as well. and we're hoping as we're sharing this collection through the book, that many others will come to this collection and bring their own questions about it as tom and i have any questions here. thank you. i have a two part question. first off, can you speak to. digitizing, transcribing this set of letters versus some of the other collections that you've worked through in the past? was this particularly challenging or was this pretty standard? was there any particular challenges with this collection versus others? i might add that with this collection, because of the various letter writers, there is a a sliding scale of difficulty, as we showed you with some of rachel's letters, she has very nice script. her her grammar tends to be kind of higher than most. so transcribing her letters were were on the easier part of that scale. david, on the other hand, from his letters, you can tell that he he was not as proficient in in his writing or his grammar. those proved to be a little more difficult to to pass out. but it did improve through the war. you could tell that as he kind of had practice, that he got better with with with writing home. as we mentioned earlier, several of his letters. we we think we're written by a different hand either john lauterbach or another soldier in his unit. but he does he does write some one of the other aspects of this is almost all of them are written in ink, which did make it easier. pencil has a tendency to smear and just over the years it it can be harder to read but ink helps stay as it is darker and it just allows you to to read a little easier. and in doing the transcriptions we tried to stay as true verbatim to what we found in the letters. so that means a lot of things are not spelled to a standard modern english and we actually kind of would advise people to read them almost aloud as many times. they would have probably been read aloud to share with with other family members and to share this kind of news. this is certainly a families that had gone to school, but for a different amounts of time. we looked at the census records and saw it different times that rachel ward and her siblings had gone to school for various amounts of time, as well as the many siblings in the walter's family. so it does explain a sort of variations in their education level and. so much more of their letters is almost in like an oral tradition about how their their to each other through through these documents. but they're also combining them with the etiquette of letter writing and some of those phrases. so those we tried to preserve. so my second question is so you mention you have about 180 letters in the collection. can you hazard a guess? and how much is we do know for a fact that there are missing letters because they will several of them are referenced. rachel will say in your letter of this date, which we don't have, i would say we have definitive some around maybe 15, 20 that are specifically referenced that we don't have we also don't have any of the letters that rachel sent to isaac or john wesley or the only letters of rachel's we have are the ones that she sent to david. so that kind of her missives to them are missing. so a lot of what she told them, we were we could learn through some of their letters back, you know, in your letter of this date, you mentioned this. so we could get little puzzle pieces of what she had written to them, but not her full letters. and we have about 15 envelopes without the contents. so we know that we have the wrappers, but we don't have what they had written. it is, but it helped us in ways that we use them to figure out where they were at certain times and so it did inform us about how they were traveling, where the brothers were at were at certain times the number of letters that rachel was receiving, as well. so they did fill in some of those gaps, even though we did not have the contents. behind. and it sounds like some of the important of these letters are the envelopes that they came in, the stamps that were on them. was it maybe you mentioned this, but is it common? and why do you do you have some insight as to why they did keep the envelopes? why not just the letters, especially thinking about trying to travel with all of these letters? it's just extra paper that you kind of have to bring with you. so what are your thoughts on that? i think it's partly it's maybe a little bit of let's have a wrapper on the outside to protect these letters as you're carrying them. it does also does become part of the story. and yes, some families choose to just save the contents of the letters and some museums and archives to save the the letters, not the envelopes. and in this case, we have it certainly was when the family was donating it. the first items that they donated, the smithsonian. were seven of the envelopes. and then the letters came a year later, when they were ready to to donate, there was and i think it was partly just for them and for what it does for us. it tells part of that story of who has written on that address, how that moved, and have some of those dates that some of these letters don't include all the dates and places that they were and maybe some of that also helped. rachel, you know, where people were and why she saved some of those. we have a couple coming in online. so the first that i have here is thank you for the wonderful and you mentioned that the letters themselves represent the narrative of the family's wartime experiences as editors. how much work did you have to do to fill in the gaps between the letters, or are there no significant gaps in the collection and it's fairly robust. between 1861 through 1865. from the beginning of the war, and then through the aftermath. what tom and i really tried to do was not intervene too much. we tried to, in the way that we approached the transcriptions, we tried to leave it as verbatim as possible. we used notes to to help identify some places and and people's names that are maybe a little bit harder to read some period terms, but it's the introductory essays that we give that are about each of the that i think fill in the this sort of put it in the context of what's happening in the nation, what's happening in the v.a., what's happening in the community in which rachel lived and the walter's brothers had lived. so i think we filled not many of the gaps. it was pretty small. we most of the wartime experiences, lynn said, was was well-represented in the letters we we did occasionally have to look at records of the units where they may have been to confirm certain things, especially when, for example, when isaac wrote in the camp, the 20th indiana, that that's not really a good. so being able to to kind of say, okay here but again that information was there. we knew they were in the camp for the 23rd year and we just had a pass it out a little bit. most of the information we added would be things kind of more the background things from census records, from genealogical records, things like that, which was not necessarily in the letter. so that was really where we added most. but again, they they did provide a wealth of information that in the letters themselves that that didn't require us to go too deep into that area. and at least one occasion we did correct something to do. we found that rachel had misstated one of hers. and in june of 1864 and as many of us have this sort of moment, she wrote 1
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