The following letter was written by Isaac “Marshall” Christy (1844-1905), a native of Trumbull county, Ohio, who came to Iowa with his parents in 1854. On 23 November 1861, he enlisted at Oceola, Iowa, as a private in Co. I, 15th Iowa Infantry with his older brother William Christy. Marshall survived the battle of Shiloh unscathed in April 1862 but was wounded slightly in both legs near Corinth, Mississippi, on 3 October 1862. He was promoted to corporal on 24 February 1863 and reenlisted as a Veteran in December 1863 while at Vicksburg, Mississippi. On 20 July 1864 before Atlanta, he received a slight wound to the head from a Minié ball. He became a sergeant on 25 August 1864 and served until his discharge on 24 July 1865.
After the war, Marshall attended Wesleyan University at Indianola and afterwards graduated from Bryant & Stratton’s business college at Burlington. He married Louise Almyra Bennett on 23 February 1871 and raised a family. The Christys moved from Osceola, Iowa, to Phoenix, Arizona, in 1891 where Isaac hoped that the climate would improve his health. He joined the GAR and applied for an invalid pension. He died 31 March 1905 and was buried in the Masons Cemetery, Block 17, Lot 1. His remains were moved to Greenwood Cemetery in 1907 by the Masons.
This letter was shared by Marcus Crane on his Facebook site. He is a descendant of Achsah Marshall, the recipient of this letter, who was a first cousin of Marshall Christy. Achsah married Charles A. Crane (1834-1928) in 1876.
T R A N S C R I P T I O N
Goldsboro, North Carolina
April 1, 1865
Cousin Achsah,
Your welcome letter of March 15 came to hand yesterday and contents read with pleasure. Was glad to hear of your good health and that all the friends were enjoying themselves so well. You are a number one guesser as you guessed the reason why the first time. I had written you two letters since receiving any and had come to the conclusion that you had forgotten me entirely, but this letter has happily dispelled that illusion. I pity Cousin Louis that she has such an awful time writing her letter to Will but I can’t help her any unless it be to not be so particular in writing her letters to soldiers as it is the news they are after and do not care so much as to the penmanship. If she does not wish to profit by my advice—all well and good. There is no affront intended and I hope there will be none taken. As the boys tell, I am not accountable for what I say.
I expect you will think it would have been better for me to have taken more pains with this, but I have to write in a hurry and have no time to spend in putting on style and hate stylish things anyway. Coz, I congratulate you on your letter writing as your letters pleased me more than any I have read for a long time. There was some life and vivacity about it—not as if you were copying it off of some book as the most of the Ladies of the latter day write. You need not think I am trying to flatter you as that is not my intention.
I expect you will have heard ere this all the details of our raid through the Carolina’s so that it would only be retelling stale news to you to tell you about it. The citizens in the country we have been traveling through are the most ignorant race of people God ever let the sun shine upon. I do not blame the poor people of this country for what they have done for they are not accountable for what they do, not knowing any better. I talked with one woman about 35 years of age who lived 9 miles from Columbia S. C. I asked her how far it was to town and she said he did not know as she had never been there. I asked her how long she has lived there. She said she was born there & had lived there ever since but had never been to town. I seen hundreds of such crimes of ignorance in my travels.
This war will be the cause of one God’s blessing at least. That is that it will put the Aristocracy and poor class of the South on a more equal level, thus giving all a chance to get a limited education and know what is going on in the world & cannot be led into war and ruin so easily again. The poor people of the South do not care half as much about the destruction of their property as the rich does. I seen many a woman in the streets of Columbia with her children gathered around her while the fire was burning everything she possessed in this world say they were glad of it—that it would learn some of the Aristocracy of what it was [to] want. That it was what they had anxiously been watching & praying for—for the coming of Sherman & his army. As for themselves, they could commence anew again and with the help of God make out some way. Women that talk that way is the ones I call the true “[ ]” of the South.
We destroyed everything of a combustible nature in S.C. The burning was done by those who had been prisoners & had received such hard treatment from the rebel authorities. They all swore vengence on S. C. if they ever got inside of her “borders” and they have forcefully kept their oath as the track they left behind them will readily show. They could not have sent a better army to destroy the county than Sherman’s, as no other army has had half the experience it has. You could notice the difference in feeling as soon as we crossed the line dividing North and South Carolina. All their thirst for burning & pillaging was gone as they had become perfectly satisfied with what they had done in South Carolina.
I passed through the cities of Orangeburg, Columbia, Waynesboro [?], Fayetteville, Goldsborough, &c. Taking out Columbia, they are all small towns irregularly laid out and in mose cases, awful dirty. They are what would be called small potatoes and few in a hill by the side of most any of our county towns up North. Columbia, before it was burned, was a very neat and pretty place, but it was entirely destroyed.
I have, if anything, a great deal worse time in writing this letter than Louis had with his for there has been so many in here talking to me that I did not know half of the time what I was writing about. I never could write with a whole pack around me talking and cutting up. If you can’t read this, send it back and I will try [again]. You need not be afraid of tiring me out reading your letters. The only fault I find is that they are not long enough. You must look over bad writing and all mistakes of all kinds for I wrote under very trying circumstances but tried to be as neat as possible.
Give my best wishes to all inquiring friends. Direct the same as before. Write soon to your cousin, I. M. Christy, Co. I, 15th Iowa Vet. Vols.. 3rd Brigade, 4th Division, 17th Army Corps
Oh yes, I want you to remember that photo. I want to see it very bad. Please sent it, won’t you?
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