The Webster Teachout Collection includes 28 letters from Webster Teachout, a Union soldier in the Civil War, addressed to his family in Michigan as well as four letters between Webster Teachout, James W Sterns, and AM Shaw about a debt owed. I transcribed these letters, digitized them, and added that information to the MSU Archives website.
While reading the letters in the collection, I noticed many of the letters described many mortal dangers a soldier could come to during the war: death and injury by the enemy's hand, taken as a prisoner of war, hunger from not enough or bad rations, and sickness from harsh weather mixed with inadequate living conditions. Below is a timeline of Teachout's letters which mention these topics. I've grouped the letters that mention weather conditions at the top of the timeline. Click the link at the end of the description to read the entire contents of the letter shown.
While reading the letters in the collection, I noticed many of the letters described many mortal dangers a soldier could come to during the war: death and injury by the enemy's hand, taken as a prisoner of war, hunger from not enough or bad rations, and sickness from harsh weather mixed with inadequate living conditions. Below is a timeline of Teachout's letters which mention these topics. I've grouped the letters that mention weather conditions at the top of the timeline. Click the link at the end of the description to read the entire contents of the letter shown.
Teachout talks much more about sickness from camp conditions than being killed, captured, or injured by the enemy. This shows just how dangerous it was to be a soldier: if the men weren't being shot, they were dying from sickness. The rations weren't filling or plenty enough, shown in Teachout's complaints and his requests for his mother to send food from home. The soldiers weren't properly dressed for cold weather in the winter; he asks his family to send him gloves and boots. Adequate tents were not even supplied all of the time to shelter the soldiers from wind and precipitation. Through all of these awful realities of life as a soldier during the Civil War, Webster Teachout continually assures his parents that he's having the time of his life. He loves being with his fellow soldiers, completing raids and making friends. To Teachout at least, the soldier lifestyle was worth the dangers.
If you'd like to look further into the text of all 29 letters Webster Teachout wrote, upload this Word Document to
voyant-tools.org. This text analysis website is a useful, free tool to help understand the content of his letters even more thoroughly. |
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