From Jerome to Allie, June 22, 1863

From Jerome to Allie, June 22, 1863

Peirce, Jerome

Allie

Vicksburg, MS.

From Jerome to Allie

Jerome Peirce

Jerome Peirce Collection, National Park Service

HIST 428 (Spring 2020), University of Mary Washington

1863-06-22

NPS, Civil War Study Group, Josef Rokus (Transcriber)

For educational purposes with no commercial use. Courtesy of National Park Service, Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania NMP, FRSP 16095-16102 (FRSP-00904).

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English

Text

Letter #132

Rear of Vicksburg, MS.

LETTER TRANSCRIPTION

Rear of Vicksburg, Miss 22nd June 1863
My ever dear wife,
Have just finished breakfast and the “orderly” just handed me yours of the 10th and last Friday after I had mailed one to you. I received yours of the 7th and a nice letter from Miss Walker in reply to mine written while on the “Morgan Scout”. There must be a back mail as your last before these was May 26th. They came via Louisville while our regular mail must be at Cincinnati.
Well, dear Allie, we have moved a little ways again since my last on Friday, about three miles further towards V. [Vicksburg] and where we can hear a fearful booming of the guns when they choose to do so. Sat. [Saturday] was a fearful day and the night before, but since that time it, has been rather quiet although they pound away in the night some. They are completely cut off and a vast army, of which we are a part, [is] waiting to meet any reinforcements which may attempt to reach them and it is only a question of time.
I wish you could just peep in and see our tent and I think you would feel that we could find a pleasant nook. It is pitched in a little shady spot among locust trees of small growth while the whole country is teeming with blackberries and wild plums of which we have feasted abundantly and they do us good and not hurt.
We are to relieve a Western Regt. (Ills. [Illinois]) and expect in the course of the day to move a little way and into rifle pits which command the approaches in every direction.
We are now on the regular road to V. [Vicksburg] and about 10 miles from it. I made a mistake in my last in saying So. East. I meant No. East of V. [Vicksburg]. I can hardly describe the country. The soil is very soft and deep. Consequently, heavy rains from the most fantastic and frightful gullies cutting through and forming deep cuts from ten to fifty and even a hundred feet deep while the deep dells and gorges where the water courses are filled with a wild gigantic growth of timber. In one of these we have to descend to get water a mile and a half strong from camp. Water, indeed, is the hardest thing to obtain, such a contrast to Ky. [Kentucky] for [what we] got is not so good as the former but we have learned not to be fastidious.
The weather is variable, one day exceedingly hot and burdensome causing a scarcity of clothing which is quite amusing and then cooling as this morning which is quite delightful. So that we adapt ourselves to all weathers.
I sport for a load of contents of knapsack as follows: half a woolen blanket, two pieces of tent, rubber blanket, two shirts (one on me), ditto socks, a little bag with my Shakespeare, etc., sewing tools, a piece or two of cloth, brush and hairbrush, a very small hatchet (bought at Cairo and invaluable in camp and writing material making a very little pack. Canteen and haversack being the worst part of our load, now adding, of course, gun and equipments, “40 rounds”.
Am so happy to tell you that I am well and fully myself again having to all appearances recovered from the effects of the journey from Ky. [Kentucky] and having no duty, only when the Regt. moves. I am favored and find much time for precious thoughts, reading, etc., etc.
I was glad to receive the letter from Miss Walker. Said you had promised to visit her with Lulu. Little darling hope you’ll get the letter with the one I wrote her. Will add a little in this.
Have some rare precious hours with our “rare” Ben E. strolled away yesterday P.M. [Ate] blackberries and related personal histories and experiences and ours have been wonderfully alike in some things. I never can be too thankful for such a friend meeting as he does my inmost wants and tempering my thoughts and actions in many ways. He always sends a kindly word for you.
Let me tell you [how] happy I am that you are enjoying life so well. Express my gratitude to the friends for all their kindness and tell them I can endure to the end if I am but remembered and my loved ones are cared for.
My thoughts often revert to the Pratts. I appreciate fully their thoughts of me and am quite content to still be remembered as one of their boys for those were precious hours, those delightful evenings at their house in C [Charlestown]. Shall we ever forget them?
I enclose a little more of the “hanging moss” which you can share with the friends. The magnolia leaves discolor badly. I wish you could see them in their beauty.
I want to hear more about Frank’s getting home. Is he well?
No news from the East for a long time. Have not seen Alonzo for a day or two. The feeling here is that with Vicksburg down, goes the Rebel “House”, so might it be!
Will add a word which you may send to Lu with the butterfly and wings which we, “Ben and I”, captured yesterday.
Col. Bowman is “C.B.” (Commanding Brigade). We see little of him now. Col. Norton commands the Regt. He is very pleasant and so is Col. B. [Bowman], some talk to the contrary not withstanding. Say as little about officers as possible. This for you.
Remember to friends, Phipps, Smith (C.F.) and all and believe me as ever your
loving husband
Jerome P.

I send a “Passion flower”, very beautiful growing.

P.S. Direct [letters] as follows: 36th Mass. Vols. 9th “A. C” [Army Corps]
Leave off “Burnside’s” Dept. via Cincinnati

TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES
NOTE 1: The Unit History summarizes the movements of the Regiment from June 10, 1863, until July 4, 1863, as follows. “The steamer “Meteor” carried the 36th Massachusetts Regiment from Cairo by way of Columbus, Kentucky; Memphis, Tennessee; Helena, Arkansas; and Columbus, Arkansas, to Snyder’s Bluff, where it disembarked. On June 20, it went into camp near Vicksburg, Mississippi, as part of the Union’s siege of that city.”
The regiment consisted of approximately 760 officers and men at that time. The Confederates surrendered the city on July 4, 1863, marking an important turning point in the Civil War. In the Company Muster Roll for May – June 1863, Peirce was recorded as “Present.”
Below is pictured the only Civil War monument that could be found that honors the 36th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment. Known as the Massachusetts State Memorial, it is located on Grant Avenue at Grant Circle on the Vicksburg Battlefield and was the first state memorial erected within the Vicksburg National Military Park. The monument cost $4,500 and was dedicated on November 14, 1903. The statue of a Union soldier, sculpted by Theo Alice Ruggles Kitson, is mounted on a 15-ton boulder from Massachusetts. The inscription on the bronze plaque on the base reads
MASSACHUSETTS TRIBUTE TO THE
29th, 35th AND 36th REGIMENTS
VOLUNTEER INFANTRY
9th ARMY CORPS

NOTE 2: The Siege of Vicksburg (May 18 – July 4, 1863) was the final major military action in the Vicksburg Campaign of the Civil War. In a series of maneuvers, Union Maj. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant and his Army of the Tennessee crossed the Mississippi River and drove the Confederate Army of Mississippi, led by Lt. Gen. John C. Pemberton, into the defensive lines surrounding the fortress city of Vicksburg, Mississippi.
Vicksburg was the last major Confederate stronghold on the Mississippi River; therefore, capturing it completed the second part of the Northern strategy, the Anaconda Plan. When two major assaults (May 19 and 22, 1863) against the Confederate fortifications were repulsed with heavy casualties, Grant decided to besiege the city beginning on May 25. After holding out for more than forty days, with their reinforcement and supplies nearly gone, the garrison finally surrendered on July 4.

NOTE 3: The “Ben E.” referred to in the letter was Benjamin B. Edmands. He enlisted as a Private at age 27 from Brookline, Massachusetts, and he was subsequently promoted to Corporal. On January 20, 1864, he was discharged from the 36th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment for promotion as a Lieutenant in the 54th Massachusetts Regiment of Volunteers.

NOTE 4: The “Alonzo” Jerome referred to in this letter was Seth Alonzo Ranlett. Ranlett enlisted in Co. B of the 36th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment as a Private on July 24, 1862, at age 22, and he was from Charlestown, Massachusetts. He was promoted to First Sergeant on August 27, 1862, and was commissioned as a First Lieutenant on December 1, 1862. On December 17, 1862, he was appointed Adjutant of the Regiment. He was mustered out “on account of physical disability from disease incurred in the service” on February 20, 1864.
Ranlett was born on March 18, 1840, in Charlestown, Massachusetts, and he died May 21, 1905, in Newton, Massachusetts. Ranlett’s wife was Ellen Peirce Ranlett, with a date of birth of March 22, 1842, and a date of death of January 12, 1914. They were married on January 21, 1864. Ellen Peirce was one of the children of Foster Peirce and his wife Catherine Abby Beaman. Also, Foster Peirce was a brother of Jerome. Therefore, the Ellen that Jerome mentions in his letters was one of Jerome’s nieces, and starting on January 21, 1864, Alonzo was the husband of one of his nieces.

NOTE 5: Col. Bowman was Henry Bowman, from Clinton, Massachusetts, who enlisted as a Captain in the 15th Massachusetts Volunteers on August 1, 1861. He was captured at Ball’s Bluff, Loudon County, Virginia, on October 21, 1861. He was a prisoner of war at Richmond and was a hostage for Confederates held in New York for trial as pirates. Bowman was exchanged in August 1862. On August 22, 1862, he was promoted to colonel, commanding the 36th Massachusetts. He resigned on July 27, 1863, but was recommissioned in October of 1863. He subsequently served in different units, including at Baltimore and Philadelphia until the close of the war.

NOTE 6: John B. Norton enlisted at age 39 from Charlestown, Massachusetts, as a First Lieutenant. He was promoted to Captain on July 8, 1861, and was transferred to the 36th Massachusetts Regiment on August 22, 1862. Shortly thereafter, on August 28, 1862, he was promoted to Lieutenant Colonel. He commanded the Regiment only from June 1, 1863, until July 30, 1863, which included the date that this letter was written. For reasons not specified in the Unit History, he resigned on July 30, 1863.

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