The following letter was written by Franklin Monroe Hollister (1824-1893) to his wife, Lucy Dutton (Williams) Hollister (1823-1908). The couple were married in Muskingum county, Ohio, on 30 December 1852. Frank was born at Groton, New York, the oldest child of Asa Hollister and Lucretia Page. In June 1861, Frank worked as a civilian blacksmith/carriage smith in Zanesville. A Veterans Schedule reveals that Frank later served as a private in Co. C, 159th Ohio Infantry for three months (100 day Ohio National Guard) during the summer of 1864. Their duty assignment at that time was to guard railroad bridges along the Philadelphia, Wilmington & Baltimore Railroad.
Frank’s letter gives us a glimpse of the war excitement in Zanesville, Ohio, in mid-June 1861, two months after the firing on Fort Sumter.
T R A N S CR I P T I O N
Zanesville [Ohio]
June 16th 1861
Dear Lucy,
Three months have passed since I bid you goodbye and long and lonely have they been to me—the longest three months I ever passed, partly on account of your account, and partly on account of the startling events that have transpired. It is the universal expression here that the time never dragged so heavily as it has since the 15th of April. 1
Our friends here are all well. Mr. & Mrs. [Howard] Aston send their love. Others ditto. But I can’t name the all.
We had two collisions on the [raid]road last Monday. Three men were killed in one and others hurt. Among them William Thompson—not dangerous however. 2 The cause was a new time table changing the time and numbering it the same as the last, the conductors mistaking the old card for the new one.
The 20th [Ohio] Regiment left here Thursday for the sacred soil of Old Virginia. 3 The 17th came down from Lancaster the same day and took their place in camp yesterday. 4 They got marching orders to gather with the 8 companies of the 19th stationed here (two companies [A & B] of the 19th are already in Virginia). They were to leave this morning at 6 o’clock. I went down to see them off. Twenty-six passenger cars contained the 17th and two companies of the 19th. Another train of stock cars was ready to take the remaining 6 companies but they refused to ride in them. The people think they will be glad to ride in almost any [type of] car before the war is over. I heard the Colonel [Samuel Beatty, 19th Ohio Infantry] severely censured. 5
I suppose other troops will be sent here to take their place as this is to be a permanent camp (I am afraid too permanent, for some of the girls they seem perfectly bewitched after the sojer boys and if some of them don’t leave their card, I shall be disappointed. Every day they go to the camp in droves carrying cakes and other goodies and every evening they are promenading the streets with both officers and high privates. 6
By the way, Company I, 19th [OVI] has some of the highest kind of privates. Two of them are 6 feet 7 inches [tall] and nearly all 6 feet. As I told you in one of my letters, there would be no fight at Harpers Ferry so it has turned out. The rebels have run from there just in time to escape the coils of Scott’s boa constructor.
Three deserters from there arrived at a relatives—a Mr. Swank, who lives in the country two or three miles east of here yesterday. They say their whole company deserted, captain and all. They left just before the bridge was blown up. Also say there are five thousand more in the Harpers Ferry rebel army who will desert as soon as they can get away. “So mote it be.”
Tell Gertie [that] Cappie Hiliard wants to know when she is coming home. Floy. Cole says she want to see Gertie Hollister or her great grandmother, she don’t care which. She is in a great way about her great grandmother. She went out to the cemetery a while ago and was shown her great grandmother’s grave. [She] came home crying because her great grandmother was dead. Her mother thinks it was a good joke.
My sheet is full and I must bid you goodbye. — Frank Hollister
Ben Blandie’s company of three year’s men start for camp tomorrow morning. 7 This makes five companies from Zanesville and one from Dresden, six from Old Muskingum.
1 On April 15th, President Lincoln issued a proclamation asserting that the states which enacted ordinances of secession were in a state of insurrection, subsequently calling for 75,000 troops to quell this upheaval.
2 Possibly the same William Thompson enumerated at Zanesville in the 1860 US Census who was born about 1835 in Maine and working in Zanesville in the Carriage business.
3 The 20th Ohio Infantry (3 months) finished their organizing and drilling in Zanesville, ohio, before receiving orders to West Virginia. They were organized at Columbus.
4 The 17th Ohio Infantry (3 Months) were mustered into service at Camp Anderson in Lancaster under the command of Colonel John. M. Connell on 5 June 1861, to date from 27 April 1861. They saw service briefly in West Virginia.
5 A drummer boy in Co. H of the 19th Ohio Infantry (3 months) wrote in his diary that eight of the companies were sent to Camp Goddard, one mile from Zanesville. It was located on the grounds of the Agricultural Society of Muskingum county (Fairgrounds)—situated in a valley surrounded by beautiful wood-covered hills. The camp was “25-30 acres in size and surrounded by a fence with substantial buildings for quarters,” he wrote. [See Diary of an Ohio Volunteer]
6 “The ladies of Zanesville, God bless their kind hearts and pretty faces, have shown themselves to be true, genuine daughters of freedom. We have received from them substantial evidences in the form of various little luxuries, such as we have not had since we left our own loved homes, of the goodness of their hearts, and the interest that they take in the welfare of those who have undertaken to vindicate the rights of our government and sustain the honor of our common country. Long may they live to greet the gallant boys of the old’ Buckeye State with their kindest and most bewitching smiles; and may they live to see the enemies of our country annihilated, and freedom established from the far East to the far West, and from the chilly North to the farthest part of the sunny South; and then long may they live to enjoy that freedom which their fair hands has so much contributed to establish.” [Diary of an Ohio Volunteer, page 22]
7 Benjamin A. Blandy (or Blandie) served as the 1st Lieutenant of Co. D, 78th Ohio Infantry (3 years men) recruited out of Zanesville. Their Colonel was Mortimer D. Leggett.
Spared & Shared 23 