DIARY UPDATE

Morgan Andrew's Diary

Since I first posted about the Civil War Diary of Morgan Andrews on December 5th, I have continued transcribing it, and within its pages additional information came to light about Morgan's death.

Morgan Andrew's Civil War Diary

In my previous posting I quoted what I thought were the last entries in the diary that were dated July 6-8 1862, in which Morgan very matter-of-factly says that he isn't feeling well for several days and then blank pages.  The image from the company roster said Morgan died on July 30 in Cumberland Maryland of disease.

Roster of the 84th Regiment, showing that Morgan died of disease.

However, several pages in, the diary continues in someone else's handwriting...

The first entry, under July 21 lists the names of the household where Morgan is being cared for: "Jacob Riser, Cumberland Maryland When (sic) Julia Riser Mary E Riser }Daughters"

July 21st Diary entry. It is not certain that this entry was made on the 21st.

At first, I thought one of the members of the Riser family had undertaken to update Morgan's diary.

But further down, this entry tells a different story:

Diary entry dated 23 July 1862.

It reads in part, "Got to Cumberland 9 P.M. Found M. deranged Continued so untill morning when partly rational   recognized us"...

Got to Cumberland? The Rizers lived in Cumberland they would not have arrived in Cumberland. This is someone else. Recognized us? Who would Morgan recognize?

His family! Someone in Morgan's family had traveled to Cumberland to assist in his recovery. The diary does not give many clues, but since it was had been handed down in his brother Fairman's family, it was most likely Fairman Andrews.

The entries continue for several days as Morgan's condition varied, sometimes giving hope and sometimes offering none, until the final entry:

Morgan died at 2 oclock this afternoon...

The disease that took Morgan's life is never named. It could have been any of a dozen diseases that took the majority of the casualties of the Civil War. Whichever disease it was, it was probably waterborne because in this entry from July 5th...

The July heat in the Washington D.C. area was taking a toll. The young soldiers did not drill and
took the opportunity to bathe in the Potomac River.

Morgan brags, "I swam across 6 times without touching (the bottom)"

Even before the Army camped on it's shore, the Potomac was a foul river as this quote from Wikipedia illustrates:
      "Beginning in the 19th century, with increasing mining and agriculture upstream and urban sewage and runoff downstream, the water quality of the Potomac River deteriorated... It is said that President Abraham Lincoln used to escape to the highlands on summer nights to escape the river's stench"

Particularly at the beginning of the Civil War the importance of proper sanitation measures was not understood. The soldiers would drink from the same water that was used for bathing and as a toilet. Tens of thousands of soldiers died from diseases like typhoid and dysentery as a result.

Morgan was one of them.

2019 Genealogy Goal - Organizing my files.

Here's an update on my 2019 goal of organizing my genealogy files. 2-4 hours each weekend have been dedicated to filing all the many, many papers that were piled in different areas of my house. I was convinced that I was going to conquer this mountain of paperwork. Until...

Sequestered "educational" papers.

I found several "hidden" piles of paperwork; in the bottom of a file drawer, shoved between two shelves and filed in with published histories.  UGH!  Most of the papers were from workshops and conferences that I had attended and covered topics of particular interest to my personal genealogy education. BUT, among those educational papers were family history documents and printouts.

But thanks to a minor snow storm and a quiet Saturday, all the papers have been evaluated, sorted and filed. Whew! That was some marathon session of organizing!

Now, on to my digital files!

Touching History

One of the wonderful aspects of my job is that I get to touch history. Like last fall when a donation was brought to my attention. Someone was getting rid of a bunch of theological materials. Among the items donated was a tiny handmade New Testament that was written in an Ethiopian language that is mostly used just for ecclesiastical purposes.

Wooden end pieces and hand stitched binding of this
very unique donation.

Vellum pages and ornate illustrations and text.

We are still waiting to see if the item has any monetary value or if it is just incredibly interesting.
























And it happened again just a couple of months ago...       
     

Medina County Texas is due east of San Antonio, Texas

In the spring, a gentleman from Texas contacted us about a Civil War diary that he thought belonged at the Medina Library. Knowing that there is a Medina, Texas, we first verified that he had the right Medina library.






Thomas Kreneck, is an archivist, and knew what he was doing. The family who was donating the item, Dick and Mary Heldt,  just wanted to make sure it had a good home. Thomas wanted to know that it had the right  home.

He said the diary never gives the author's name, but mentions that the author's father was the sheriff of Medina and also mentions several locations, such as, Brunswick, Seville, etc. Yep, he had the right Medina Library.

The gentleman promised to send the diary to us. Months went by and no diary ever appeared. As often happens, life took over and sending us the library went to the bottom of the list. I contacted Tom in September and on October 4th a package was sitting on my desk when I came into work.

It was the diary! 




The cover is a very delicate leather with a little slot and flap to keep it closed. The days and dates are pre-printed and leaves 10 lines for each entry.   

This type of diary was meant to be carried in the inside pocket of a man's coat.  And they were very popular with Civil War soldiers. 

The first pages have an annual calendar for 1862 and then it jumps right into the daily entries.

Indeed, the author never identifies himself but starts recording his daily routine.

His punctuation, capitalization and spelling are erratic and when doing transcriptions, these must be recorded accurately. This is particularly challenging when all of our software wants to auto-correct everything.

The first 3 days read:

January 1 Wednesday Happy new year to myself and the rest of mankind=. Dull new year’s in this Town of Medina= nothing going on. at home all day. Father went to Brunswick in morning: Firm got home from Chicago Friday. Gilmore & Firm came down going to Seville

January 2 Thursday At home. Done nothing particular, Cold day= Firm & Gilmore were at our house to day. went up to court house in evening Severance & Bill Hayslip were there

January 3 Friday About home. done some work at the office and at house. snowed most all afternoon. Went up to Clerks office in evening Bill. Hayslip was there found what we wanted to do impractible. the roads are in good condition

Reading further into the diary still did not reveal who the author was. This was purported to be a Civil War Diary but for months, all the author does it recount his daily schedule which involves helping his father with clerical work and delivering summons and subpoenas. Not until mid-April does he talk much about the war.

April 10 Thursday About  home all day worked most of the time 
News Recd today of the Death of H. Canfield he was killed in the battle of Pittsburg Landing at the Head of the Regt. The combined forces of Grand & Buell have Defeated Beauregard with 100,000 men with terrible slaughter on both sides

(The Battle of Pittsburg Landing is more commonly known as the Battle of Shiloh.)

April 11 Friday Father went to special Meeting in A.M. to take measures in regard to Receiving Remains of Col. Canfield. as the meeting adjourned Mr. Mat & Mrs Canfield arrived from Grafton with the information of the arrival of the remains at the station. The citizens went in carriages men the corpse & escorted it into town.

April 12 Saturday Went up in morning and seen Canfields Corpse. looked natural. started bout 9 & went to Lodi Homer Spencer Chatham & home bout Dark Served Summons & got Jurymen. goog many of the 72d Regt are Killed & wounded & taken prisoners.


(More information on Colonel Herman Canfield can be seen at his memorial on FindaGrave.)

Consulting the 1881 History of Medina County and Ohio, disclosed that in 1862, Morgan Andrews Sr. was the Sheriff of Medina County.

Listing of Medina County Sheriff's from the 1881
History of Medina County and Ohio, page 240

The History had other revelations in store:

List of Civil War Soldiers from Medina county on page 348 of
History of Medina County and Ohio.

This would be Morgan Andrews, Junior. A quick jump to the end of the diary...

The last entry is on July 8 of 1862:

July 6 Sunday  Inspection in the morning very warm day no drilling took out a lot of boys in the P.M. They went off and milked their canteens full of Milk. Jo Welch Beul & myself laid under the Shade in the woods

July 7 Monday  Not very well today did not drill in the forenoon went out on dress Parade and felt so sick came pretty near dropping my Gun got better and drilled with the Cos. the Captain was either drunk or very cross on our drill

July 8 Tuesday Unwell all day did not drill any. laid on Lieut Manning's bed most all the time. took some medicine of my own. did not report to the surgeon at all as he is not fit to be surgeon of a Regt. slept in our mess tent in the night.




The Official Roster of the Soldiers of the State of Ohio in the War of the Rebellion, lists Civil War Soldiers and Casualties and has this to say about Morgan Andrews:

According to the Roster, Morgan died on July 30 1862, page 632.

Page 784 of the Roster tells us that Morgan died of disease and was buried in Antietam, Maryland.

The diarist was "quite unwell" in his last entries on July 7th & 8th and Morgan died on July 30th. I believe we have identified the author of the diary - Morgan Andrews Jr. But Morgan Andrews Sr. had other sons.

This excerpt from the 1860 Census for Medina County shows Morgan Andrews with his (2nd) wife Cordelia, daughter
Maria (sic), son Morgan, son Finley and two inmates from the jail, Christian Breemer, a farmer who is
listed as insane and John Reed a "convict".

This excerpt from the 1850 Census for Hinckley Township, Medina County shows Morgan Andrews' original
profession was "tailor" Also shown are two additional sons, Addison, age 19 and Fairman, age 15. Neither of
these young men are listed among the soldiers who served in the Civil War from Medina.

The diary mentions "Firm" several times and most likely this refers to "Fairman", Morgan Jr's brother. So Fairman is not the author. NO other concrete information has been found on Addison.

Additional research using the census records on Ancestry Library Edition, Findagrave and Medina Library's Obituary Index confirmed that the author of the diary was Morgan Andrews Jr. 

Although the Roster says that Morgan was buried at Antietam, he also has tombstones at Old Town Cemetery and Spring Grove Cemetery in Medina.

Morgan Andrews tombstone in Old Town Cemetery
Photo courtesy of itsallrelative2me 

Morgan's tombstone at Spring Grove.

Following up with more research on the family, I found out that Fairman, Sarah and sister Meroa (listed as "Maria" in the census records) all died in 1910, within several months of each other.

Meroa never married and worked for A.I. Root when he had a jewelry store. Then she started a small jewelry shop of her own. When the a small circulating library was formed in 1877, Meroa donated space in her shop to house the books and served as the "librarian" of the collection.

Both her and Fairman's obituaries mention that they came from a family of five children, but neither obituary mentions what happened to Addison...

Fairman died in Girard Pennsylvania, outside of Erie. The people who donated the diary had cleaned out their father's attic in Lake City, Pennsylvania, less than a mile from Girard.

After Morgan's death, Fairman undoubtedly kept the diary and it was passed on through his family, eventually ending up in the attic of Wilson F. Andrews, father of Mary Andrews Heldt. Mary now lives in Texas with her husband Dick.

Wilson appears in the 1880 Chicago, Cook County, Illinois census as the 14 year old son of ... "Firnon" Andrews.

1880 Census for Chicago, Cook County, Illinois from Ancestry Library Edition.

We thank Thomas Kreneck and Dick & Mary (ANDREWS) Heldt for their diligence in finding a new home for Mary's great uncle's journal. So now Morgan Andrews' diary, that details his daily life in Medina and recounting his short time in the Civil War, has returned home.

Ohio's Squirrel Hunters

FIRST, read this post from the Legal Genealogist and decide what you want to do to protect your privacy.

NO,  not the kind of squirrel hunters who shoot at the very cute but also
very annoying and destructive little rodents that populate my neighborhood.

During the Civil War, states and cities that formed the border between the North and the South worried constantly about the battle coming into their homes. If you know very much about the Civil War you will know that their worries were justified. Homes in the path of Sherman's March To The Sea, were looted and crops were burned. Some homes in Gettysburg still have bullets lodged in their siding.

In September of 1862, the citizens of Cincinnati Ohio were alarmed when they learned that Confederate leader, General Kirby Smith was headed their way. Martial law was enacted in the city. The governor of Ohio telegraphed each county across the state, calling for armed volunteers to hasten to Cincinnati and defend the border. Men from 65 out of Ohio's 88 counties answered the call. 15,000 in two days. Armed with muskets, shotguns and "squirrel" rifles; hence the name of the volunteers "Squirrel Hunters."

This article from the Medina Gazette in 1935 described how Democrats (Copperheads*) & Republicans forgot their political differences for a time when their state needed them:

Medina County Gazette 9 August 1935, section 2, page 3. Article by P. (Peter) P. Cherry,
a local Medina historian. Cherry inflated the number of troops involved.

The governor ordered that the men should travel by train and the railroad would be reimbursed later. Soon, flour and other food supplies were also on their way to the volunteers.

Image from the Library of Congress of Squirrel Hunters
https://www.loc.gov/resource/ihas.200000085.0/?sp=1

On September 13th, officials received word that the Confederate forces had retreated from their advance. Rebel scouts had learned of the rally of the citizen soldiers. The volunteers returned home soon after.

In 1863, the Governor ordered that official discharges be printed for every man who came to the defense of Cincinnati. In time, these "Squirrel Hunter" discharges became prized possessions.

In 1908, the Ohio Legislature passed a resolution to grant each "Squirrel Hunter" $13, or the equivalent of one month's pay for a private in the Army.

Very little documentation exists on the "Squirrel Hunters" of Medina County. Only one man lists his participation with the volunteers in the 1881 History of Medina County and Ohio,  p. 777-778. Morris Olds of Hinckley Township answered the call. After he returned home, he was drafted but hired a substitute. Upon learning that the substitute had been killed in action, he joined the 1st Ohio Light Artillery.
No mention of the Squirrel Hunters turns up in the library's books on the G.A.R. (Grand Army of the Republic, a veteran's organization) or Medina in the Civil War.

A few newspaper clippings, beside Peter Cherry's article, were in The Gazette and The Sentinel:

19 August 1881, p. 7 The Medina Gazette article on the reunion of the
124 O.V.I.

8 May 19087 Medina Sentinel  article detailing the state legislature granting a
stipend for the "Squirrel Hunters."

Medina Sentinel Apr 19 1912 p. 1

The state of Ohio has compiled a roster of the Squirrel Hunters, but the Medina Library doesn't have a copy of it.  The libraries that own copies of the index to the roster are listed on this LINK.


*Copperheads were generally Democrats who opposed the war.


For more information, view these links:
Oberlin Heritage Center

Ohio History Central

Library of Congress

Cincinnati Civil War Roundtable

Medina Library's Resources on Veteran's & Military Service

In honor of Veterans Day, and because military records are some of my favorite records to research, I am highlighting the Medina Library's Resources on Military Service records.

MICROFILM HOLDINGS

• Index to the Ohio Union Civil War Roster of Soldiers
• Ohio Union Civil War Roster of Soldiers
• Veteran's Graves in Medina County Cemeteries from the Revolutionary War to World War I
• Medina County, Ohio 1890 Union Civil War Veterans or their Widows*

BOOKS

• 8th Ohio Volunteer Infantry
• Index to the WPA Medina County "Cemetery Plots for Veterans" Book
• Korean War Era Casualties 1950-1958
• Medina After the Civil War (2 vols.)
• Medina Boys, Union Veterans the G.A.R. of Medina 1880-1890
• Medina County Civil War Roster as Published in the 1881 Baskin & Battey History of Medina County and Ohio
• Medina County Women of the Military (2 vols.)
• Medina County Ohio Civil War Veterans
• Medina in World War II
• Reminiscences of the War (Civil War)
• Revolutionary Soldiers' Graves, located in Cuyahoga, Lorain and Medina County
• Veterans Buried in Medina County
• Volume 1 - Revolutionary War
• Volume 2 - War of 1812
• World War II in Medina County, Ohio
• Young American Patriots - the Youth of Ohio in WWII

OHIO RESOURCES

• Battery H 1st Ohio Light Artillery in Virginia 1864-1865
• Index to the Grave Records of Servicemen of the War of 1812 State of Ohio
• Index to Official Roster of Ohio Soldiers in the War with Spain
• Official Roster III Soldiers of the American Revolution Who Lived in the State of Ohio
• Official Roster of Ohio Soldiers in the War with Spain (and separate index)
• Official Roster of Ohio Soldiers, Sailors and Marines World War 1917-1918 (23 vols.)
• Official Roster of the Soldiers of the State of Ohio in the War with Mexico 1846-1848
• Ohio War of 1812 Soldiers Family Groups
• The Revolution on the Upper Ohio 1775-1777
• Roster of Ohio Soldiers in the War of 1812
• Veterans Hall of Fame - Ohio's Heroes of History

And when you are searching for military service information, don't forget to try the Family Search web site (free, anywhere) and Ancestry Library Edition (free from inside any of the Medina Libraries)

The Medina Library does not have any resources on foreign military service or veterans.

Part of the display that honors Cathy Owen, Medina County
Veteran of the Year!
Come up to the second floor of the library to see the full display.

Every November, I invite a military organization to put a display in the cabinets outside the Franklin Sylvester Genealogy Room.  This month, I am very proud to say that we are highlighting the Medina County Women of the Military. This group is very unique in that invites all women of any military branch to join. We have members from the Army, Marines, Navy, Coast Guard, Civil Air Patrol and Air Force. They have published two books on the experiences of women who have served, and are working on the third.
If you are a woman who lives or works in Medina County and you served or are serving in the military, please consider joining. Their Facebook page is: https://www.facebook.com/MedinaCountyWomenoftheMilitary/

Marching Home: Union Veterans and Their Unending Civil War

Military history is fascinating! At least it is when you have relatives that actually fought the battles, marched those trails, and suffered those privations. 

As I have been working a lot on my ancestors who served in the U.S. Civil War, I thought I had a decent idea of what those men endured. Until I read this book:
Marching Home: Union Veterans and Their Unending Civil War  by Brian Matthew Jordan.

This book blows away old misconceptions and tells what it was truly like for the soldiers trying to return to civilian life. 

No one at the time understood what they had gone through and most didn’t want to believe just how horrible it was. 

The soldiers themselves had very mixed feelings, impatient to get home to loved ones but unsure of how to return to civilian life without their army comrades. 

And when it came time to ask the government to take care of their bodies & minds that were mangled by the war, they met resistance & disbelief every step of the way. 

Some parallels are drawn between the vets of 150 years ago and today’s veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan. 

Your mind will draw many more comparisons. Heavily recommended for anyone interested in U.S. military history, the Civil War, or how the US treats its veterans.

Reserve a copy here: 
http://bitly.com/1yP2Hna