The following letter was written by 37 year-old Joseph Havens Lewis (1826-1907) to his wife, Thada (Jewell) Lewis (1828-1884). Joseph was the son of Robert Lewis (1789-1858) and Abigail F. Tennant (1796-1879). In the 1860 US Census, Joseph and Thada were enumerated in Berlin, Green Lake, Wisconsin where he was employed as a carpenter.

During the Civil War, Joseph enlisted in September 1861 as a private in the 3rd Wisconsin Light Artillery. He survived the war and mustered out on 10 October 1864.

The 3rd Wisconsin Light Artillery, also known as the “Badger Battery,” served throughout Tennessee, Mississippi, and Georgia in addition to Kentucky. It participated in the battles of Perryville, Stones River, Chickamauga, the Georgia Campaign, the Chatttanooga-Ringold Campaign, and the sieges of Corinth and Chattanooga. The battery lost 27 men during service. Six enlisted men were killed in battle and 21 enlisted men by disease.

T R A N S C R I P T I O N

Camp McMinnville, Tennessee
July 16, 1863

Thada, your letter dated July the 5th reached here on the 15th and found me all right. My health is good at the present time. I think I enjoy better health here as a general thing than I did in Wisconsin. I was glad to hear you and the children was all well and enjoying yourselves so well. I would been glad to been there to spend the 4th of July with you. I think I could enjoyed it very well. I think before another 4th of July comes around, we will all be at home of half of the news we are getting is true. This rebellion will soon be at an end. The report is here that Grant has taken Vicksburg and Banks Port Hudson and Meade has whipped Lee and we know that Rosecrans has drove Old Bragg out of Tennessee. It is hard to tell now where they will make their next stand. I hardly think there will be any more hard fighting. I am sure there will not be in this department. We have Tennessee clear now with the exception of some small bands of guerrilla parties and they will never fight when they can get around it. If they can ride in and tear up a railroad, they will do it, and then put out again. But we have little trouble with them now. There is Union men enough in this state now to keep the rebels out of this part of the country.

You sent me some pieces of flannel. If that is the best you can do, I will send you back the one I prefer. You tell Amanda I do not think she has very good taste for men’s shirts. You can tell her for me, I can appreciate the light of the moon yet but not in the same way I could in the days of my youth. I am much obliged for the love she sends to me and she has mine in return—what there is left of it after you have got your share. She can have the balance. It will be all she will want, I presume. I want you to be particular when you make them shirts to make the sleeves large and long for they shrink very bad. And make them large around the collar and make the collar wide so it will turn down. And do not forget to have Davis send me that tobacco—four or five pounds of the best, fine-cut chewing—and he shall have the money as soon as I can send it to him.

Tell Frank I will come home as soon as I can to help him build his barn. I would like to know where he is going to build it—in Pine River or Berlin? You will become so attached to Pine River you will want to stay there. I shall sell out in Berlin after this war is over. I think property will bring a good price then in Berlin. Doctor Turner says that property is coming up in Berlin. If it ever gets up to be worth what it has been, I shall sell and try some other place.

I have to make a wagon axle tree this afternoon and I must close. You must write often, Thada. This from your husband, — Joseph H. Lewis