Jaci Dawn

163 years ago, my great-great uncles were marching to the Atlantic Ocean with General Sherman. I really do want to record their service in the Union Army, but the season has moved from Winter to Spring, and I am spending MY days in the garden in my own yard pulling weeds,

Willard, Wilber, John, and Thomas were penning letters home in July of 1863. Telling of victories, illnesses, and losses. Wilber and John would not return home. Willard and Thomas would return home broken men.

I have found it too difficult to follow the letters home that I have in my collection, some from the brothers and some from the in-laws (Barnards, Miranda Wilcox  married into the family). The war was gruesome, terrible, unrelenting, and it took a heavy toll on the men and women who lived through it.

I may pick this thread up again when the weather turns once again, but for now I am finished with the American Civil War. God rest my ancestors.