Item No. 9934325

The Woodburn family from the tiny Ohio village of Kingsville sent three sons to the war with the 2nd Ohio Battery—oldest brother Justus H. Woodburn, Jr. (b. 1841), William D. Woodburn (b. 1844), and Dudley Woodburn (b. 1846). While William and Dudley returned home in 1865, Justus Jr. died of disease at New Orleans on July 6, 1864. This pair of letters includes one written by Justus just twenty days prior to his death and another written by Dudley to the family a few weeks after their brother’s passing.

Justus’s six-page letter, dated June 16, 1864, was written from the battery’s camp near Morganza, Louisiana, where they had been since the end of the disastrous Red River Campaign. It begins cheerily enough with no indication that he would soon fall ill:

Fancying that some two weeks from now, as the time approaches for the Kingsville mail to arrive, you will say “we ought to have a letter from the boys tonight,” and not wishing to make Clair’s visit to the P.O. useless, knowing that he dislikes to be out nights [a fourth brother, Clarence, b. 1849], I pen these few lines, not to convey any news, but to let you know that we still live in our camp on the Mississippi, and rather expect to spend the summer here; that we are well and hope these lines will find you enjoying the same blessing.

Justus then describes “another grand review” by Generals Daniel E. Sickles and William H. Emory. “The blue steel of 15,000 bayonets flashed in the bright rays of the sun,” he writes, before describing Sickles as “a large, well built man with sandy complexion & moustache and an artificial leg which he won at Gettysburg.” Sickles had famously lost his leg in battle the previous summer and was then on a fact-finding tour of Union-held regions of the south. Justus notes that:

He sat up straight in his saddle with his slouched hat over his eyes (it should have been in his hand according to Regulations), his head up, and turned over a little to one side, looking clean over the heads of the passing troops, presenting an appearance as though he thought everybody was mad at him and he didn’t care a cent.

General Emory, Justus describes unflatteringly as “a thick set man with sandy complexion, large scowling gray eyes, bottle nose, and face more than flat, i.e. with a huge rope of flesh extending down each side of his face, almost covering the corners of his mouth.”

Observing that the weather had been “becoming oppressing warm,” he writes that “we feel it less when we are “at work and stirring about than when we lie under our tarpaulins doing nothing, for while we are at work we can sweat off the effects of the heat.”

With the Red River Campaign having ended, Justus provides some reassurance to his mother, not knowing that he had only days to live. He writes, “I suppose that by this time you are relieved of the anxiety which you must have felt for our safety during the four or five weeks that our mail communications were cut off.” He then describes the area around their Morganza camp:

Perhaps you have fancied our “Landing” to be a little collection of dwelling houses, sailors’ stores, groceries, grog shops, etc.—nothing of the kind. There is no village within 20 miles of us that I know of. The landing proper is some three miles down the River and is nothing more than the mere banks of the stream. The country for miles on each side of us is low and flat, in places swampy, and is prevented from inundation by a levee about 12 feet high. The levee forms excellent fortifications, and embrasures are dug for batteries at intervals of 70 or 80 rods.

In further describing the area, he writes:

Brown, ordinary looking plantation houses & squalid negro quarters are scattered along the River. The owners are fled and a few negroes, mostly old women, remain. Although it is the season for fruit and garden sauce, yet we cannot have them, for two Army corps encamped so close as we are not long in divesting a large section of its edibles. It seems an age since the last lean black long snouted pig strayed past our camp, and my closing recollections of him are of a dozen boys pursuing with sticks & stones. The pantry has all been “gobbled,” even down to the little piping chicken with egg shell still sticking to his back. The milk cows are captured for the officers and the beef cattle are penned up for some purpose. We never get any fresh beef. Even the fences have all disappeared in the form of huts for soldiers, bunks, and firewood. The first move of an infantry regt on coming to a new camp is for the fences. I have seen more than a mile of strong post and bar fence carried off on the shoulders of a few regiments in the space of fifteen minutes.

Near the close of his letter, Justus describes the vastness of their camp and of their new corps commander, General Michael K. Lawler:

There are two corps encamped on the River. Our own and the 19th, which lies south of us. The whole forms a continuing camp some five miles long. Brig Gen Lawler commands our corps. He is a large, portly old man of about 300 lbs weight, and looks like a rich crabbed old farmer.

The HDS database indicates that Justus died at New Orleans on July 6, 1864. The second letter, written by Dudley on August 7 on three pages, gives some clues as to what befell Justus—likely typhoid fever or dysentery. He writes:

We received both of your letters, Clair’s of July 17th and Father’s of July 21st, which was written as soon as you heard of our Brother’s death. You heard of it within two days as soon as we did, yet we knew it would be something wonderful if he lived when he left on the Hospital boat for New Orleans July 5th. He was very low and failing every hour. The nurse said he was crazy the most of the night before. He died as soon as he got to the Hospital, so the Clerk will not know anything about his sufferings or his requests in his last hours.

Dudley continues discussing how Justus was evacuated to New Orleans and regrets how his brother’s last moments were spent:

We were with him all the time till July 4th three o’clock P.M. when the Ambulance came for him. Then we were not allowed to visit him but once, and then but for a very few moments. It makes one feel bad to witness the coldness with which one’s friends are used in their dying hour. And you are not allowed even the privilege of seeing them, not say anything about caring for them. These cruelties are termed Military Necessities. But we have only two years and five months longer to stand it. This is the only objection I have to Soldiering.

“We know where Brother’s grave is, but have not been to it,” he writes. “We are going as soon as we can get our pass signed. We are under very strict discipline and have to go through a long process to get out of camp.” Of their current location, he writes, “Seven Batteries are camped close together under charge of Capt. Foster of the 1st Wis. Batt. and in Gen. [Edward] Canby’s command. We have to drill four times every day and one inspection.”

The letters were written on standard bifolium letter sheets, the larger of the two being about 5” x 8”. Fine, with creases at the original folds. Also included is a postal cover addressed to the Woodburns’ mother and franked by Captain Augustus Beach. The full letter transcripts can be read below.

Morganza La. June 16th / 64

Dear Mother
Fancying that some two weeks from now, as the time approaches for the Kingsville mail to arrive, you will say “we ought to have a letter from the boys tonight,” and not wishing to make Clair’s visit to the P.O. useless, knowing that he dislikes to be out nights, I pen these few lines, not to convey any news, but to let you know that we still live in our camp on the Mississippi, and rather expect to spend the summer here; that we are well and hope these lines will find you enjoying the same blessing.

Day before yesterday, we were out on another grand review, more grand than our former review, for it was a bright pleasant day, and the blue uniforms of the troops appeared to better advantage, not being flapped down as before by the drifting rain; and the blue steel of 15,000 bayonets flashed in the bright rays of the sun. We reviewed before Gens. Sickles and Emory. Sickles is a large, well built man with sandy complexion & moustache and an artificial leg which he won at Gettysburg. He sat up straight in his saddle with his slouched hat over his eyes (it should have been in his hand according to Regulations), his head up, and turned over a little to one side, looking clean over the heads of the passing troops, presenting an appearance as though he thought everybody was mad at him and he didn’t care a cent. Emory is a thick set man with sandy complexion, large scowling gray eyes, bottle nose, and face more than flat, i.e. with a huge rope of flesh extending down each side of his face, almost covering the corners of his mouth.

The rainy weather seems to have ceased. There has been no rain for three days, and the weather is becoming oppressing warm. Still, I don’t know as we feel the heat more than you do at the North. We feel it less when we are at work and stirring about than when we lie under our tarpaulins doing nothing, for while we are at work we can sweat off the effects of the heat.

I suppose that by this time you are relieved of the anxiety which you must have felt for our safety during the four or five weeks that our mail communications were cut off. Perhaps you have fancied our “Landing” to be a little collection of dwelling houses, sailors’ stores, groceries, grog shops, etc.—nothing of the kind. There is no village within 20 miles of us that I know of. The landing proper is some three miles down the River and is nothing more than the mere banks of the stream. The country for miles on each side of us is low and flat, in places swampy, and is prevented from inundation by a levee about 12 feet high. The levee forms excellent fortifications, and embrasures are dug for batteries at intervals of 70 or 80 rods. Brown, ordinary looking plantation houses & squalid negro quarters are scattered along the River. The owners are fled and a few negroes, mostly old women, remain. Although it is the season for fruit and garden sauce, yet we cannot have them, for two Army corps encamped so close as we are not long in divesting a large section of its edibles. It seems an age since the last lean black long snouted pig strayed past our camp, and my closing recollections of him are of a dozen boys pursuing with sticks & stones. The pantry has all been “gobbled,” even down to the little piping chicken with egg shell still sticking to his back. The milk cows are captured for the officers and the beef cattle are penned up for some purpose. We never get any fresh beef. Even the fences have all disappeared in the form of huts for soldiers, bunks, and firewood. The first move of an infantry regt on coming to a new camp is for the fences. I have seen more than a mile of strong post and bar fence carried off on the shoulders of a few regiments in the space of fifteen minutes. There are two corps encamped on the River. Our own and the 19th, which lies south of us. The whole forms a continuing camp some five miles long. Brig Gen Lawler commands our corps. He is a large, portly old man of about 300 lbs weight, and looks like a rich crabbed old farmer.

Dixon and Dudley send their respects. Your Son
Justus

Greenvile La. August 7th 1864

Father and Clair
We received both of your letters, Clair’s of July 17th and Father’s of July 21st, which was written as soon as you heard of our Brother’s death. You heard of it within two days as soon as we did, yet we knew it would be something wonderful if he lived when he left on the Hospital boat for New Orleans July 5th. He was very low and failing every hour. The nurse said he was crazy the most of the night before. He died as soon as he got to the Hospital, so the Clerk will not know anything about his sufferings or his requests in his last hours. We were with him all the time till July 4th three o’clock P.M. when the Ambulance came for him. Then we were not allowed to visit him but once, and then but for a very few moments. It makes one feel bad to witness the coldness with which one’s friends are used in their dying hour. And you are not allowed even the privilege of seeing them, not say anything about caring for them. These cruelties are termed Military Necessities. But we have only two years and five months longer to stand it. This is the only objection I have to Soldiering.

We know where Brother’s grave is, but have not been to it. We are going as soon as we can get our pass signed. We are under very strict discipline and have to go through a long process to get out of camp.

This camp is about one mile from our other in the Military district of Greenville.

Seven Batteries are camped close together under charge of Capt. Foster of the 1st Wis. Batt. and in Gen. Canby’s command. We have to drill four times every day and one inspection.

We have a Battalion guard each man mounted on a horse. This the boys call style. Dick is well and sends his love.
Your very respectfully
Dudley Woodburn
2nd Ohio Battery
New Orleans La.