This letter was unsigned but datelined from a small community in Pottawattamie county, Iowa, named Big Grove. A county history informs us that Brig Grove was located in an immense grove from which it took its name until the railroad station and new town were designated as Oakland. A careful and more thoughtful diagnosis of the names mentioned in this letter might lead one to identify the author but I’ll leave that to someone else for want of time. I feel confident that the author was a female and most likely born in the late 1840s or 1850. She informs us that she was attending school at the time, in October 1864.
The letter was addressed to William Lyman, Jr. (1844-1930) who served in Co. C, 29th Iowa Infantry with his two older brothers—Maj. Joseph Lyman (18401890) and Pvt. Sereno Lyman (1842-1893). They were the sons of William Lyman (1814-1875) and Sarah Pierce (1820-1905) of Oakland, Pottawattamie county, Iowa.
The letter was written on patriotic stationery that included the verses of a poem entitled, “Company K” (see below). I’ve found a slight variation of it that was attributed to Ethel Lynn Eliot Beers (1827-1879). It was published in the 11 August 1863 issue of the New York Ledger, first column; there were numerous reprints in other papers but that appears to be the first publication. However, there is another source that claims the poem was “found in a book entitled Lyrics, Incidents, and Sketches of the Rebellion, compiled by Ledyard Bill, sold by subscription only, and published in 1864 by Smith and McDougal, New York. There is no authorship attributed, but the following note prefaces it: “Are there not many hearts that will feel the pangs of keenest pain on reading this? Alas! That so many brave soldiers’, noble companions’, affectionate brothers’, and dearest friends’ history, death, and memory, are all told in this sad, yet heroic verse.”
There’s a cap in the closet,
Old, tattered, and blue,
That would be little value,
It may be, to you;
But a crown jewel-studded
Could not buy it to-day,
With its letters of honor,
Brave ‘Company K.’
The head that is sheltered
Needs shelter no more;
Dead heroes make holy
The trifles they wore;
so, like chaplet of honor
of laurel and bay
Seems the cap of the soldier,
Marked ‘Company K.’
Bright eyes have looked calmly
Its visor beneath
O’er the work of the reaper,
Whose harvester Death.
Let the muster-roll meagre
So mournfully say
How foremost in danger
Went ‘Company K’—
Whose footstep unbroken
Came up to the town,
Where rampart and bastion
Looked threateningly down—
Who, closing up breaches,
Still kept on their way,
Till guns, downward pointing,
Faced ‘Company K.’
Who faltered or shivered?
Who shunned battle stroke?
Whose fire was uncertain?
Whose battle line broke?
Go ask it of History
Years from today,
And the record shall tell you,
Not ‘Company K.’
Tho’ my darling is sleeping
Today with the dead,
And daisies and clover
Bloom over his head,
I smile thorough my tears
As I lay it away,
That battle-worn cap
Lettered ‘Company K.’
Transcription
Big Grove, Pottawattamie County, Iowa
October 30, 1864
Mr. Willie,
Dear friend, your kind letter dated October 14 and 15 was received yesterday evening and it was read with great pleasure just as all of your letters are. I wish you would write so I could get a letter every week. We were pleased to hear that you were all well, I really think it will be too bad if you have to leave your nice houses. I would like very much to see them if it was possible. You say that night of the oyster supper you was standing picket. You say you never thought of oyster or Mr. West either, but that is no sign that you didn’t think of Orella, 1 is it?
I believe you are mistaken about the boys that are at home enjoying oyster supper or anything else. They haven’t got spunk enough about them to go to the army and they are just like so many old men. They feel ashamed when the girls gets to talking about the soldiers for whenever there is two or three Union girls together, they are most always talking about the soldiers. But the Copperheads very seldom mention them. We have the greatest times at school talking on politics. There is no Union girls going to school except Rhonda, Hattie, and I. It is too bad Mr. West’s family have turned out to be Rebels, isn’t it?
Frannie Fetter 2 goes to school but she doesn’t have much to say, but her and Orella are very great friends. But I don’t begrudge them their friendship. I don’t think the Cops [Copperheads] will feel so large after the election. I hope they will be attended to as soon as the war is over.
You say Enos has got too much Crock. Well. I think it had a very bad effect on him for he has had a very severe spell of fever and is just getting able to walk around. Mary stayed and nursed him all the time he was sick. She just went home last week. I guess they will be married as soon as Enos gets well.
Lemuel [Layton] and his little Mary haven’t started their journey yet but are going some time this week. I was over at Mr. [Joshua] Layton’s the other Sunday afternoon and while I was there, Lem and Mary came. They look more affectionate toward each other than they did one night that I very well remember and think I always shall.
Milton Hitchcock is working here at the Grove and I guess he is about half crazy about Phebe. Carrie Layton has been very sick but is getting better and one of Glover Hamlet’s little girls is very sick. They are not expecting her to live. I was there the other day. She looks very bad. We haven’t heard from there today but I think I shall go down this afternoon. I was over last Sunday evening to meeting and seen all the new married folks as they are called that now. Jake is still living at Daddy’s. Bill and Cassie are keeping house over in the great city of Iola.
Oh, I came very near forgetting to tell the news—Sue Wierich and Bill Carothers is married 3 and Liz Slocum is also married [but] I don’t know her husband’s name. He lives in the bluffs.
I will have to put my writing away for the present for Mrs. True and my Aunt from Newtown has just come in, so goodbye. [unsigned]
1 Probably Orilla (Arellis Malinda) Myers (b. 1847), the daughter of blacksmith John Myers (1814-1900) and Sarah Dickson (1822-1870) of Pottawattamie county, Iowa. They were Mormons who relocated to Utah before 1870.
2 Frances (“Frannie”) Fetter (b. 1849) was the daughter of Jacob Lobingier Fetter (1820-1900) and Charlotte R. Palmer (1821-1897) of Pottawattamie county, Iowa.
3 William Henry Harrison Carothers (1839-1918) and Susan Katrina Weirich (1839-1918) were married on 10 September 1864 at Bellevue, Sarpy county, Nebraska.
Spared & Shared 23 