Exploring in my grandparent's attic about 50 years ago, I ran across a letter from Josiah W. Depue to his mother, my grandmother's grandmother. The letter is dated January 11, 1864, the location Germantown, Tennessee. Josiah was a member of the 6th Regiment of the Illinois cavalry, and makes it a point to say that soldiers had to supply their own horses. He writes (spelling and grammar as in the original):
...we have a great deal of duty to do now have had no fight since the one I wrote to you about in my last letter maby I did not give you the full particulars,
I did not lose my saddle nothing but my horse and arms and had to swim wolf river. I have bought another horse now and better one than I have had for some time, paid 40 dollars for him, you spoke of us riding government horses in several of your letter now I tell you it is not so. we are riding our own horses and expect to while we are in the servis, there is several cases of the smallpox here now though I am not afraid of it, there is one died from our co. and two more got it.
In February, he was captured by the Confederates. He had a migraine headache and stopped to rest whereupon he was found by a Confederate patrol. He expected he might be "paroled" by the Confederates and sent home, and noted in a subsequent letter (which my cousin Karen has) that he would be out of the service in August of 1864 anyway.
I don't know what they do with me yet. some say they parole me an some say not. Well I don't much care for my time will be out next Aug anyhow though I would like to be paroled so i could go home, well I will jut do the best I can and hope for better times to come.
As it happened, Josiah Depue was sent to Andersonville Prison in Georgia. By late summer of 1864, about one-third of the Union soldiers were dead from malnutrition, polluted water, or exposure. Of the 45,000 Union soldiers at Andersonville, about 13,000 died, one of whom was Josiah Depue.
After the war, the Commandant of Andersonville Prison, Henry Wirz, was charged and found guilty of war crimes. He was hanged on November 10, 1865. At his hanging, Union soldiers chanted, "Wirz, remember Andersonville."
Comments