From Foster Peirce to Brother Joseph, June 15, 1864

From Foster Peirce to Brother Joseph, June 15, 1864

Peirce, Foster

Peirce, Joseph

Boston, MA.

From Foster Peirce to Brother Joseph

Foster Peirce

Jerome Peirce Collection, National Park Service

HIST 428 (Spring 2020), University of Mary Washington

1864-06-15

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).

English

Text

Letter #224

Boston, MA.

Boston June 15th 1864
Br. [Brother] Joseph,
I drop a line to you to say that it is now my intention to go to Orange on Friday next but I have not fully decided whether to go in the morning train at ½ past seven or at ½ past five in the evening.
As I feel that it would be putting you to much trouble to go to the depot twice, I think if I come in the morning I will get carried over (or I think I may) but if I do not come in that train I would like to have you meet me on the arrival of the evening train.
I do not know how many will go up. Lucy intends to and Martha will go if she can leave. My Edward I think will go on Saturday. Alonzo and Ellen will not go as he can not well leave his business, beside[s] he is not very well.
There are many of his old associates in Charlestown who have been to me and expressed a great desire to go but it is very difficult for most of them to leave as they are in banks and counting houses. I think two or three may go. If so they will go on the evening train Saturday and we can meet them. I shall know all about it before I leave.
I will now say that I do not think there was ever a young man in Charlestown who has left so many friends as Jerome has. Old and young men and women in numbers beyond my conception have been to me to express their sympathy and the great loss they feel personally.
I have a communication from one of the members of the Literary Association to which he belonged giving an account of his early life, his connection and influence in the association and the estimation in which he was held by the members.
I wish to have Mr. Ballou see it and did intend to send it by this mail but I prefer to see the writer and get his consent to have Mr. Ballou use it as he may think proper.
I do not desire that one word of praise should be said in regard to Jerome that he did not merit.
But believing as I do that all such services are intended for the benefit of the living not the dead, (We cannot affect them. They have become our teachers or they’re example.) and believing Jerome to be an example he or they the imitation of all young men. I feel that I should be recreant to duty did I not place before the one who is to speak on this occasion his early history more fully than the people of Orange were able to learn it in the short time he was with them.
Thus I do wish the hope that the service may not be lost upon those who listen to them.
I shall be up in time for Mr. Ballou to make such use as he may desire of any information I may bring.
You will use your judgment about saying anything to Mr. Ballou before I come. You can read him this letter if you choose.
With best wishes to all I am yours etc.
F. Peirce

TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES

NOTE 1: Foster Peirce, who wrote this letter, was a brother of Joseph and Jerome. He apparently helped organize the funeral service held at the Orange, Massachusetts, church on June 19, 1864, four days after this letter was written.
In a letter in this collection (No. 220) which was read at the funeral service, Charles F. Smith provides additional details about Jerome’s early life and his connection to Jerome, and about the “Literary Association” referred to in this letter. He wrote,
“Associated with him from childhood, I feel it a privilege to bear testimony to his worth and to the esteem in which he was held by his comrades.
As a boy he was noted for his studious habits and eagerness for knowledge. As he grew to manhood his frank and generous nature, his conscious regard for the right and his genial disposition made him a great favorite with his companions.
In 1851 ten young men who had been schoolmates and intimate friends matured a plan for forming a society for mutual mental improvement. Into this scheme Jerome entered with all the zeal and earnestness so characteristic of him and we soon found our society increasing in numbers, in interest and usefulness.
Through the liberality of citizens pleased with the stand we had taken, a fund was raised for the purpose of providing us with a Library.
We knew Jerome to be a great student with a thorough knowledge of books and authors and to him mainly was entrusted the duty of selecting our Library and to it, with characteristic liberality, he made many additions of choice volumes from his own shelves. That Library composed as it is mainly of the more solid works of English literature, has always been a source of just pride to us and an enduring monument to Jerome’s energy and literary taste.”

NOTE 2: The “My Edward” that Foster Peirce referred to in this letter was one of his sons, based on entries in several censuses that were found on ancestry.com. Edward was 19 years old in 1864.

NOTE 3: The word “recreant” means “unfaithful or disloyal to a belief, duty or cause.”

NOTE 4: The following background information about Rev. Ballou and his papers is based on information on the website of the Rare Books and Special Collections Department of the Hesburgh Libraries of the University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, Indiana.
Levi Ballou was born on May 10, 1806, in Halifax County, Vermont. The Ballou family, of Huguenot descent, was central to the history of denominational Universalism in America. Theologically, the Universalists rejected the predestinarianism of Puritan Calvinism and held to the distinguishing principle of the ultimate salvation of all humanity. Organizationally, they were committed to what at times became an extreme form of congregational autonomy. In terms of denominational strength, the movement probably peaked in the late 1840s. Levi Ballou’s great-uncle was Rev. Hosea Ballou (1771-1852), the most important American Universalist theologian of the early nineteenth century. An older brother, Rev. Hosea Ballou II (1796-1861), was the first president of Tufts College, established by the Universalists in 1853.
Levi Ballou was a teacher and singing instructor before embarking on the study of theology. He began preaching in about 1836, itinerating mostly in the Connecticut Valley in Vermont, New Hampshire, and Massachusetts. In 1843, he settled at the first Congregational Parish and Society of Orange, Massachusetts, later known as the Second Universalist Society, in the north-central part of the state. The parish had long been supportive of Universalist doctrine. Ballou would remain there as pastor for the rest of his life. Besides preaching at Orange and in surrounding parishes, Ballou served on the Orange Public School Board and had an active interest in the establishment of Tufts College. He died of pneumonia on October 27, 1865, ten days after his last sermon at Orange.
Rev. Ballou’s sermons and papers include around 70 manuscript sermons written on sheets sewn into octavo-sized booklets, which average approximately 30 pages in length and appear to date from throughout Ballou’s career. More than half are funeral sermons, including four written for members of the 36th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment who were killed in the Civil War. The papers also include a 224-page manuscript log kept by Ballou from 1836 until his death, in which he recorded the date, place, and scriptural premise of every sermon or lecture he delivered, often accompanied by the payment he received.
The Ballou Papers were purchased by the Hesburgh Libraries of the University of Notre Dame in 2003 from Dan Casavant Rare Books of Waterville, Maine. They have been arranged and described by George Rugg, curator of the Rare Books and Special Collections Department of the Hesburgh Libraries. The sermon Rev. Ballou delivered at Sgt. Peirce’s funeral service is cataloged as “Folder 69 (MSN/EA 0502-69). Rev. Levi Ballou. Funeral sermon on 1 Corinthians 13:12. June 19, 1864. A funeral service delivered in North Orange, Massachusetts for Cpl. Jerome Pierce, Company H, 36th Massachusetts Infantry.”

Letter/Paper