August 1865 - The Civil War is Finally Over for Eli

The last letter I have from Eli to Calvin was dated July 22nd, datelined Union Springs, Alabama.  Calvin received it in Indiana on August 2nd, so I saved this last soldier's letter for this last monthly post.

Eli wrote:  "Dear Cousin, I seat myself once more at the pleasant task of answering your most welcome letter of July 1^st and 2^nd which made its appearance yesterday afternoon finding me enjoying very good health, was very glad to hear that you were all getting a long so well. We have just found the place where I like soldiering, Co K is doing provost duty here we have a house right in town very good shade around it, but still I would like to be at home, harvest wages were very good this season $2,00 is much better than 50 or 60 cts per day and then the grub is so much better.  That is what I look at -- you did not live on strong Coffee, spoilt bacon and hard tacks..."

Calvin must have commented on Eli's last letter's story of falling in love with "the best looking girl that I have seen since I have been in rebeldom" because he says, "Well you see the reason that I did not do with that young lady as you propose was this. You know that I am very bashful and should not like to approach one of the fair sex (in her standing especially,) so abrupt as to cause her and me both to faint on the spot. I'll just tell you what it is some very gay girls here in and around this little place.  If we should stay here a month or two I intend to have a chat with some of them sure. I was at Sunday School today and saw one that just smiled my taste she had such pretty curls and such ruby lips. Oh My but I wanted to go for her."

Eli returns to the 52nd's service "... There is a great deal of talk about our going to Mexico what do you think of that, I tell the boys that I shall have to go home to see pap before I can go to Mexico because I had to coax a long time before I could get his consent to go to fight the rebs and I think that I would have to coax some time longer before he would let me go to Mex.  It does not alarm me a bit to have them talk about going to Mexico because they know well enough that the whole command would rebel a great deal stronger than the south ever did."

"...I do not pity you for this reason because you have been there at home all the time and had all the chance in the world, and I have been away down here in Egypt a fighting the rebels but never mind the war is over with me now and I shall look around some for a wife.  Never you mind about going to see that widow for me I think that I can better myself right in this country I think I shall try at any rate. I wish you were here to eat water melons with me there is plenty of them and they are cheap too. I have just nearly lived on melons, apples and peaches since we have been here."

Eli then describes the provost duty -- yesterday they arrested a black man for stealing a lot of clothes. There are already two more in the jail, one for murder, and the other "for threatening to kill his master and burn his house down. The jail is about 10 feet square, a frame building cealed with two inch plank with one little hole cut in the back side about 12 inches square and bars put across one way."

Eli finishes the letter saying "The church bells are pealing forth their musical strains but it is too warm for me to go to church this after noon. We have very hot weather here now days." He also says they have plenty of fleas in the sandy soil.

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Eli Hause would officially muster out with the 52nd on the 10th of September.  A year later, he was again corresponding with his cousin Calvin as he left their home town and went to work in construction, first in other cities in Indiana, and then in Fairbury, Illinois-- a booming place with a new railroad just coming to town.  There he was attracted to the daughter of a neighbor, one Myra Jan (Jennie) Marciller, and obviously overcame the shyness he wrote about, because he described their first date as a walk from one end of town to the other, and got married to her two weeks later.  They moved to Missouri, just as Eli told Calvin he would do after marching through the state with the 52nd in 1864.

Jennie was remarkably small of stature, but a strong pioneer woman. While they moved around in western Missouri, she gave birth to the first three of the four children she and Eli would have, and made a log cabin quilt.  His brothers Elmer and William also tried to make a life in Missouri, but they both gave up and returned to Indiana. In the fall of 1874, Eli took his family back to Hardenburg as well.  Eli died of typhoid pneumonia on February 13th, 1877 when he was just 30 years old.

The Hause family has amassed a remarkable record of their genealogy, but until I contacted them, they were unaware of Eli's Civil War Service.  He had a very simple marker in the family plot in the local cemetery, which broke between my visits last summer and this spring.

Eli died almost exactly two years prior to Congressional authorization to provide official markers for veterans in private cemeteries.  A few months ago, I started the process of applying for one for him.  First I had to obtain his complete service record from the National Archives. I had been sorry that the family have no photos of Eli - though here's one of the two brothers that went to Missouri with him and Jennie - the younger Elmer (left) and his older brother, fellow veteran William:

With the Complete Service Record, I got this description of Eli, which at least partially answers one question the photo above raises - 

You can get a government-supplied stone marker for a veteran only if the grave is not currently marked. My application for the marker was answered with a request for proof that Eli is buried in the cemetery I named on the form.  Because of all the history between then and now, I couldn't provide the types of documents they asked for, but just yesterday, I spoke with a VA Memorials official and emailed the above photo of his grave marked with the small brass plaque (placed by the townspeople in about 1980), a photo of the family monument, and the local newspaper notification of Eli's death the county librarian found as my evidence.  Not long after our conversation, the VA official sent me an email saying she had approved  my request, adding that Eli's marker should be delivered to the monuments company in nearby N. Vernon, Indiana in four to six weeks.

When I started on the Civil War quilt series back in 2012, I had no idea I would end up rejoicing at the official approval notification I received from the VA this morning.  I did not make a block for Eli this month because I have not yet decided all of the blocks will go together and how many more I may need, but for August 2015, I'm satisfied to have a obtained different kind of memorial to Eli's service.

July, 1865

Eli has been serving in Alabama waiting for orders to go home. My July block is a variation of the Alabama block.  This version is easier to piece in the 8 inch size I've been using.

Our sun is so bright today the colors are washed out in my photo.

The next letter from Eli to Calvin was sent from Montgomery Alabama on June 11th, but my entry last month was long so I postponed telling this part of his story. In reference to a report Calvin gave him that oil has been struck in nearby North Vernon, Eli writes, "I should not be surprised for the paper stated the other day that their well had caught afire and was about to burn this whole Country up. Think there is any danger of burning my big plantation up there at Hardenburg? If there is I will try and sell out."  He then goes on to a new topic:  "... as I told you before I was on picket night before last and after night we had to patrol the Country to pick up the boys out there that was out stealing chickens. So one of the other Corp and I took 3 men and went out where some market wagons had stoped for the night, and lo and behold divil a soldier did we find there -- but I saw the best looking girl that I have seen since I have been in rebeldom. I tell you what I just fell in love with her but pshaw what good did that do me, I have not saw her since nor never expect to see her again."  He tells Calvin to stop teasing him about some unnamed woman back home, and later tells Calvin to find a good looking young lady and intercede for him.  Eli does not believe he'll make it home by July 4th, but it should not be long after that.  The men are still drilling as usual. 

On July 7th, Eli answers two letters from Calvin, complaining of how hot it is. They are getting honey for 15 to 30 cents per pound and he's eating all the peaches and apples he wants every day. He has to go off on Parade so takes up the pen again on the 8th. Evidently he's had some success meeting women on his own, because he writes, "... I wish you were here next saturday to spend a week with me we would go out in the Country and have a big time with some girls that I have got acquainted with, if nothing happens and I can get permission to leave camp I am going out to see them, wouldn't you laugh if I should fetch one of them home with me, ha, ha, ha." Calvin's letter must have suggested the name of some young lady they both know Eli seems to be interested in.  Both young men are 19 years old at this time.

June, 1865

On June 9th, about two weeks after the Grand Review of the Armies, Billy and John were mustered out of service.  Both went back to their homes and families near Hayden, Indiana.
Great-Great Uncle Billy married John's sister Caroline just after the war.  They had two sons, Fredrick and Shepherd.  My Great Grandmother's book tells us that Fredrick died in New Jersey during the Great War (WWI).  Shepherd stayed in southern Indiana and went on to be a musician like his father, and was the County Superintendent of the Public Schools from 1911 until 1938. Billy was a carpenter, and the museum in Hayden has examples of furniture he built in their pre-1900 bedroom display. (The couple pictured are from a different family)

Billy Whitcomb dresser at the Hayden museum

Billy Whitcomb bed, nightstand, and mirror at the Hayden museum

There is no photo of John in uniform, nor are there any of his soldier letters. As we understand it, John wanted to forget the war.

Earliest picture I have of John

The local history museum in Hayden featured John in a newsletter article a few years ago and called him "one of the most prominent men and progressive farmers at one time in Spencer Township." John did not marry until 1874 - his wife Alice was 10 years younger.  They had 14 children together - 12 of them lived to adulthood.  This was the house they built - (photo from the mid 1900's)

John used his soldier's pay to buy land near his father's place. By 1884, he owned a total of 730 acres. Alice wrote of John, "farmer by vocation and by nature, he loved livestock and to till the soil. He went at his work early in the morning with great zest and determination, which brought him unusual success.  He took pleasure in his surroundings: the sunrise and set - the glories of the day ... grain fields were seas of beauty to him." I can go on about his achievements but let me instead copy this portion of what Alice said about John and Billy (who was her mother's brother), and their friend Levi -

John and Wm were comrads in Co. B 82 reg't Ind. Volunteers. infantry. always felt near. Had another comrade forming a trio, and who knows but that the ties formed on the bloody fields of Chickamauga and Lookout Mountain are stronger even than the family ties formed when fields were green instead of red. 

Levi, a few months before he died sent John and "Billy" this toast:

"Heres to you old pals
May you live a thousand years
Just to keep things happy
Through this vale of tears:
And may I live a thousand years – just short one day.
'Cause I wouldn't like to stay on earth
When you had gone away."

When John & Billy got this toast how deeply their hearts were touched. This triumvirate of the days of 1862-5 was broken by the death first of Levi – in a short time John joined him //November 1912//. Two weeks more Billy too joined them. All patriotic, kind, were loving husbands, good fathers, tolerant neighbors. At parting there is always something sweet to remember.

To remember John in my quilt, I tried again to make the Indiana Farmer block I attempted for the Grandmother's Choice quilt. What was 8 inches for that quilt is 18 here, which I thought would be easier.

It was still a difficult block. I pieced it, except for the ends of the tabs which are appliqued where the background ticking stripe meets the asymmetrical blue star points.

Unlike the 82nd, Indiana's 52nd remained in the field. Eli wrote to his cousin Calvin from Montgomery Alabama on June1st -

I seat myself this morning to scratch you a few lines in answer to your kind and welcome letter of April 30^th which came to  hand a few days ago and found me enjoying very good health. Well Cal I have put off writing longer than I should but I was trying to learn something of our future whereabouts, as near as I can find out you might as well direct via Cairo when you write again. The officers got orders to have their books straightened up so as to be ready when called upon and the 2^nd Brig had orders to go down the river starting this morning. You need not be at all surprised if I should spend the 4^th of July with you. Oh won't we have some great times when I get home again.

After discussing letters sent and not received, and telling Calvin he's thinking about not shaving his mustache until he gets home, Eli writes,

I believe I shall go out tomorrow and get some plums and blackberries. I wish you were here to go with me we would have a gay time wouldn't we. There was one of the 178^th NY shot himself this morning and made a sure thing of it, the ball entering his mouth and come out of the top of the back of the head tore his head very badly to pieces. I think he was very foolish now that the war is over and so good a prospect of getting home soon.

For most everyone the war is over, but with Eli still in the Union Army writing letters to Calvin, I'm not finished making blocks for my quilt yet.

May, 1865 - The Grand Review of the Armies

The men of Indiana's 82nd made their march from North Carolina to Washington DC with the 14th Corps, which had the leftmost route. The regimental historian described the march as a sort of race, with the 14th Corps' route being the longest. he claims they arrived at the capital several hours in the lead, covering an average of 32 miles per day.

The Grand Review of the Armies took place on May 23rd and 24th.  Sherman led the 65,000 men of the Army of the Tennessee and the Army of Georgia in a six-hour parade. The second day is always described by contrasting the military precision of Meade's army with the roughness of Sherman's, which was trailed by a crowd of people who had accompanied the army up from Savannah. Wikipedia adds this, "At the very end was a vast herd of cattle and other livestock that had been taken from Carolina farms."

I'll try to sum up Billy and John's post-war lives next month. For now, I'm marking their participation in the Grand Review with this block, Washington Pavement.

Eli's regiment was still in the field. He wrote to Calvin from camp near Montgomery, Alabama on May 10th:

Dear Cousin
I seat myself this afternoon noon to scratch you a few lines in answer to your kind and welcome letter of Apr 10th which came to hand a few days ago, it found me enjoying very good health, I have put off answering you two or three days longer than I should if there had not been so much talk of our leaving very soon, but I do not see as there is any greater prospect of our leaving now than there was the next day after we came here."

After Eli tells Calvin about the peaches and blackberries already ripening, he comments,  "....well Cal it is amusing the way that the two contending parties come together nowadays paroled rebs are continually coming into our lines here on their way home and they will set down and talk with us an hour at a time it just seems like we had been fighting in the same cause but belonged to [different] regiments or Commands. They have all got enough. I have heard a large number say that if they had to go out again they would fight under the old stars and stripes, they also say that they hope that the north will hang all of the leaders." 

Calvin has not received all of Eli's letters, and this one took two weeks to arrive in Indiana. It seems Eli has received a promotion from Private because this is the signature on this letter:

Corp Eli W. Hause, Co. "K," 52^nd Ind. Vet Vol,  3d Brig, 2^nd Div, 16^th A.C

In the circle around the internal "E.W. Hause to Cal. Wilder" Eli has written, "how to you like this envelope eh it is a reb" Previous envelopes have been off-white or yellow.  The postmark is the 24th.

(the notations in pencil at the upper edge were made by my father in the 1970's and relate to the stamp.)