The following letter was written by a soldier named “Gus” from Cincinnati whom we learn was a member of the “Hundred Days Men” of Ohio. Who were these men? The following excerpt from an excellent article by Kyle Nappi explains:
By the Spring of 1864, the United States had suffered considerable strain in its effort to preserve the union and defeat the Confederacy. “There was scarcely a family in the North who did not suffer sorrow that cannot be described,” one Yankee veteran recalled in his twilight years. “Hardly a fireside that did not mourn for a husband or lover, brother or friend, who went forth with pride, never to return.” Ohio had already sent a tenth of its total population off to war. Nonetheless, Buckeye Governor John Brough drafted a bold proposal to encourage the recruitment of short-term soldiers from the Midwestern states in attempt to mount additional pressure upon the Confederacy.
On April 21, 1864, Governor Brough submitted the ambitious gambit to Secretary of War Edwin Stanton and President Abraham Lincoln. “The term of service to be one hundred days, reckoning from the date of muster into the service of the United States.”
“The foregoing proposition,” the President promptly replied, “is accepted…the Secretary of War is directed to carry it into execution. Thus, the Hundred Days Men were born. Ohio would furnish thirty thousand new recruits, Indiana and Illinois would enlist twenty thousand apiece, Iowa ten thousand, and Wisconsin five thousand. “The call was intended as a herald to the last great Union thrust that would topple the Confederacy like a sudden wind against a weakened tree.” In the span of two weeks, the Buckeye state recruited 35,982 volunteers and organized them into forty-one regiments. “This prompt and energetic action,” Secretary Stanton relayed to Governor Brough, “exhibit an unmatched effort of devoted patriotism and stern determination to spare no sacrifice to maintain the National Government and overthrow the rebellion.” [See When Johnny Comes Marching Home.]
Among the Ohio units raised during the summer of 1864 was the 137th Ohio Vol. Infantry (OVI). They were mustered into the service on 6 May and mustered out on 21 August, 1864. It was designated under the militia law of Ohio as the 7th Ohio National Guard, composed of citizens of Cincinnati, and was organized for the 100 days’ service as the 137th Ohio volunteer infantry. A sketch in Gus’s letter depicting himself sitting on the ground with a rifle across his lap has the insignia “7 K” on the cap so searching the 70 man roster of that company turns up Augustus (“Gus”) B. Frazer (1834-1914) who was married to Kate (Katz”) R. Coates (1837-1905) on 10 September 1860 in Cincinnati, Hamilton county, Ohio. Though his name appears as Frazier in military and census records, his death certificate gives his name as Frazer and lists his parents names as Hiram Frazer (1805-1891) and Isabella Palmer. The Frazer’s made their home in Cincinnati in the 1860s at 117 John Street where Hiram earned his living in the insurance business and was an active, proud member of the Odd Fellows.
Gus was not the first member of the family to put on a military uniform. He had an older brother named Hiram who enlisted during the War with Mexico, serving in Co. E (the “Kenton Rangers”), 2nd Kentucky Infantry under the command of Capt. Cutter. Details of his service, his death on the battlefield at Buena Vista, and of his father’s traveling to Mexico to recover his son’s body are described in various newspaper clippings below.
Transcription
Fort McHenry [Baltimore, Maryland]
Friday, July 22, 1864
Just as I sit down to dinner I received your very dear letter of the 19th. It’s unnecessary to say I was happy for it was [ ] express it. I immediately read it and after partaking of dinner, I settle myself down like one in the act of writing & to the dearest little creature on earth.
We had quite a good dinner today—kraut, corn beef, and bread was what Uncle Sam gave us but having a little money we concluded to treat ourselves to something better which was composed of blackberries, huckleberries, cucumbers, tomatoes, milk & pitted apples [illegible due to paper crease]. What do you think of that for soldier dinner.
I received a letter from Father yesterday in which was enclosed ten dollars & he said if I wanted any more to let him know. He arrived safe home without any difficulty & says all the folks in Cincinnati are getting along nicely & said when I wrote to give you his love. Katz, I believe there is one or two letters that I have written to you that you have never received as you made no mention of some things that I know would have interested you. One in particular—the arrest of Johnny R. Johnston who is now confined here in the fort. 1
Katz, I can’t tell when I will be in Cincinnati but will give you the report which is pretty generally believed here—that is, we are to leave here on the 28th of this month & go to Fortress Monroe & from there take a lot of prisoners to Camp Chase and then to remain until mustered out which of course I don’t know when but suppose at the expiration of our time which will be about the 19th of August, making our hundred days.
There is nothing new here of any importance. I gave you full particulars of the raid on this place. Did you get the letter? I came off guard this morning. Was on the provost [guard] and had the pleasure of promenading that fence you saw while here. But the day being quite pleasant, I had a nice time in comparison to what I had while [you were] here.
“There was about 100 Rebs taken away yesterday to be exchanged but a good many wouldn’t go and said they would take the oath and go into the navy (Union) before they would go back and fight for the South as that was played out with them.”
Pvt. Gus Frazer, Co. K, 7th ONG, Ft. McHenry, 22 July 1864
There was about 100 Rebs taken away yesterday to be exchanged but a good many wouldn’t go and said they would take the oath and go into the navy (Union) before they would go back and fight for the South as that was played out with them.
You ask me, Katz, what I think of the war. My opinion is it will last some time to come but the North eventually will conquer. But I am sorry to say, Katz, if all the North was like me, I am afraid that it would go under in short order as I am, I think, a very poor soldier—more particular in the position I now hold, but believe I could stand it better if I was colonel or even a captain. But a common solder is too much of a nobody to suit my style.
I think if Grant don’t take Richmond & has to fall back, the end will be as far off as at the beginning. But I hope I may be mistaken. But you know Katz, hoe I believe. It’s all for the best. Let it go one way or the other—there is one looking down on it that will bring it to a proper end, let that be which it will.
Eph 2 hasn’t made his appearance as yet & I suppose won’t if the above report is true about us going away. I would like to see [him], next to my dear little wife (on this earth), than anyone I can think of. Did he say anything to you, Katz, about his picture. He spoke of it in a letter I got from him before you came out and said he would do it some time.
Katz, I find it a grand nuisance to try to draw anything here as just as sure as I do, the whole company gather around me wanting to know who and what is that. It makes me awful made, I tell you. I have got so I just stop when anybody comes up. It’s not very pleasant to have one looking over one’s shoulder while they are writing. I wouldn’t care if I was just making a drawing, but there is always some writing on the same paper. That is the reason I have not drawn as much as I would have done.
We have a very nice place to bathe here as you would think if here. About seven o’clock most any evening, men of all sizes, shapes, and colors go tumbling around in the water like so many porpoises. I was in one night & a crab, I suppose, caught me by the toe. You better believe I did some tall kicking. If he had caught me by someplace else (John-H), I don’t know what I would have done. It would have been pretty hard on it, wouldn’t it. I don’t know which. I don’t mind it being pinched but object to the claws.
Duke 3 is on guard today. He looks well & is well but all the time complains of something. What he don’t know ain’t worth knowing & what he can’t do ain’t worth doing. In fact, he thinks he knows it all & don’t know anything. He said the other night he was on guard in the reb prison someone of them threw a brick at him when he immediately cocked his gun & told them the first one that did that again was a dead man when they immediately quieted down & kept so during his watch. Don’t that make you mad (Ye-hoo). I have been in there and I think they are the most quiet of any in the fort. But you know him as well as I.
But I am hearty sick of this place. It has got to be such an old thing & think a change would be a relief [and] so all the rest of us think. As I said before, Katz, when I go soldiering again, it will be because there is no way of getting out of it.
I see by the paper they intend sending us home & over into Kentucky after the rebs but I think it all foolishness & don’t believe it but would like that first rate. So you see I don’t mind staying home to fight but don’t like to get so far from home. I say home but its not home how without my dear little wife. It’s only when I come from [here] and will be home when she returns which I hope will be when I do. I don’t care if its only an hour before [just] so you are there when I come for if I would go in that old house, it would seem awful dreary & lonesome. But to be greeted by that smiling face is all I ask.
Dear Katz, I must close this as I here fall in for dress parade and also want to get it into the mail so it will go out this evening. Goodbye Katz. God bless you in the fervent prayer of your affectionate husband, — Gus
Give my love to Elenor and Annie & all my relation.
1 Johnny R. Johnston (1826-1895) was an American portrait and landscape painter influenced by the Hudson River School. He moved to Baltimore in 1856 and early in the Civil War served as the Colonel of the 1st Maryland Regiment. He was arrested at the time that Gen. Early’s men threatened the city and charged with “endeavoring to persuade persons to join the Southern army.” He was kept in Fort McHenry until 1 August when he was made to take the Oath of Allegiance, post $10,000 bond, and (curiously) to cut his extremely long hair, which he complied with.
2 Ephram Frazer (1830-1869) was Gus’s older brother. In the 1860 US Census he was enumerated in his parents home in Cincinnati’s 6th Ward and was employed as an “engraver of wood.”
3 “Duke” was surely 28 year-old Marmaduke Shannon Anderson (1836-1894) who also served as a private in Co. K, 7th ONH (137th OVI). Marmaduke was the son of William Anderson (1801-1867) and Eliza Shannon (1807-18xx) of Cincinnati.
Clippings related to Gus’s older brother Hiram Frazer who was killed at the Battle of Buena Vista during the War with Mexico.
Spared & Shared 23 