Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

I Remain Yours: Common Lives in Civil War Letters

2018; Oxford University Press; Volume: 105; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1093/jahist/jay337

1945-2314

Ervin L. Jordan,

Rhetoric and Communication Studies

“Since I have been in the service,” wrote an Army of the Potomac soldier in May 1864, “there is nothing more interesting to pass away the many lonly hours than to read and write letters” (pp. 202–3). Soldiers and civilians looked forward to letters from home or war zones, but, like those of hundreds of thousands of casualties, his letter was among his last before being killed in battle. Christopher Hager guesstimates a half billion Civil War letters were created because of letter-writing manuals, homesickness, available amanuenses, and the priority authorities placed on delivering mail—second only to military telegrams (pp. 4, 137). Nevertheless, it is miraculous that so many have survived given myriad perils against paper, including dead letter offices in Washington and Richmond where cartloads of undelivered or unstamped “junk mail” were burned by apathetic clerks (pp. 129–30). Perhaps just as typical was a Connecticut soldier who, after reading his exasperated wife's letters, recycled them as campfire kindling (pp. 132–33).