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Pontiac Sabbath eve Oct 18 /63

My Dear Daughter,

Yesterday I received a letter from Frank saying that Dear little Frankie was worse. I so hope and pray that he is better again if it is our Heavenly Fathers will. I am so anxious to have you both here. Frank said he wrote you that if Frankie should die to come to him, if he does, do bring the precious dust home first, then go to him. It will be a sad comfort to us all to have him near us.

We are all well excepting Maggie who has not been will for nearly a week: she has fever and headacke, she has not called a phisician yet, but will if she continues the same much longer, Excuse a short letter this time, and do write often and let us hear from your Dear little one,

Your Aff
Mother N. Murphy

P.S. I also had a letter from Johney yesterday he was quite well. I have mailed you a Sentinal containing a letter from him. Maggie joins me in much love to you, and kiss Dear Frankie for us

N. M.

Mrs. Smith sister Manerva (I believe) is married to “Tom Dodwell”

Russell W. Currier, past president of the American Veterinary Medical History Society will speak on:

“2,000 Year History of Scabies:  From Humoral Beliefs to Contagion to Modern Understanding”

Thursday, October 24, 2013, 5:30-6:30
Room 401
Univ. of Iowa Hardin Library for the Health Sciences

The transition from Hippocrates’ humors and Galenic dogma to microscopic causes of illness was a long and distressing experience delaying for centuries the concept of contagion.  Manifestations of scabies infestations were attributed erroneously to systemic phenomena, even digestive disorders. This lecture will present a 2,000 year review of this  wholly human parasite that spread in ‘deep time’ to numerous animal species as variant subspecies.

We are very excited that after a hiatus of over twenty years, the journal Dada/Surrealism has been relaunched. It is a peer-reviewed, open-access electronic journal sponsored by the Association for the Study of Dada and Surrealism and published by the International Dada Archive, University of Iowa Libraries, with managing editor Tim Shipe.

The newest issue focuses on Surrealism and Egypt.  Issues in process will focus on Dada, Surrealism, and Romania and on Dada and Surrealist Exhibitions.

The University of Iowa Libraries hosts the journal in our institutional repository, Iowa Research Online. The software provides peer review software for the editors as well as a good display for each issue. Each article is available as a PDF and also in html.

In Camp near Chatanooga Tenn. 6 Oct. 1863

Dear Brother Frank:

I’m well and hope you are. Frank, I’m short of change and do not know as we shall be paid off very soon; now if you have money to spare you may send me some by mail. Understand that I do not want it unless you can spare it just as well as not. I’m not “hard up” but might use money if I had it.

I have not heard from Mollie since I wrote you last, nor in fact from any of the family except Sammy. All is quiet here today. Yesterday each army shelled the other all day. We are all safe here and will go ahead again as soon as reinforcements reach us. I am waiting for some of Mary’s letters from you.

As ever your Brother
W. J. Murphy
Battery “M” 1st Ill. Arty.
2 Brig. 1st Div. R.C.
Army Com.
Ch Tenn.

[From Uncle John to Father.]

Head Qrs. Co. “A” 129th Ills. Vol.
Nashville, Tenn., Octr. 5th 1863

My Dear Wife

Yours of the 27th Sept. came to hand this morning & relieved my mind of much anxiety about Frankie.¹ I hope he may soon recover. Consult Dr. Heermans about your bringing him down here. I believe it will prove to be very beneficial especially if his lungs remain weak for a long time. The climate here is very much milder than at the North; though for the latitude it is at present very cold & bids fair for a healthy season.

I do not believe I ever felt the cold more at this season of the year in the North. We keep a constant fire, & it requires considerable effort to keep comfortable. It will not remain so, I presume, but it will ward off the fever that infests this country during this month generally.

I am very happy to hear that you have received so much kind attention. You have not informed me whether you are at Mother’s or Jennie’s, yet I judge at the former place from your allusions to the clock.

I have been off duty to-day. The first Sunday I have had entirely to myself since we left Richland Station. Our duties have not been so heavy for the past week. After Inspection this morning, I started down street to look up a Sabbath School & found one in a Cumberland Presbyterian Church.² I am not able to describe my feelings as I entered it, the first since I left home. The sight of the children recalled the most vivid recollections of the happy hours I spent in them at home. I looked eagerly around the room, & my heart yearned for some token of recognition, either from officers, teachers, or children, but found none. The hymn books were distributed to the school all around me. The Superintendent & teachers passed & repassed me, but not even a bow or smile. I scanned carefully the face of every child in the room but could not elicit a smile from a single one.

You cannot imagine my feelings when the truth flashed upon my mind that I was not wanted there & was an intruder. The same expression of scorn I have before witnessed was again expressed here, & I [my] heart was filled with pity for the miserable principles imbibed by the children from their teachers and parents.³ I fear it will be many years before a Northern man will even be tolerated among them, &, unless the children learn to forget their present teachings, God alone knows the misery that awaits them.

Oh, how I longed for a short time in some Sabbath School at home that I might forget the grief & sorrow that filled my heart. We have preaching occasionally in Camp but have not had a prayer meeting for long months. I do not pretend to justify myself for not being more active in the performance of religious duties; but I long for you to come that we may commune together with God. That is a cheering thought embodied in the words you have quoted, “Though sundered far by Faith we meet; Around one common mercy-seat.” We will sing it when you come.

Mrs. Fitch came last night & intends to spend the winter if we remain here.⁴ I entertain no fear of a defeat at Chattanooga; some 30,000 reinforcements have arrived.⁵

I presume ere this you have recd. Bro. Johnie’s letter. He drew a pair of Artillery boots for me, but they are at Chattanooga & I can see no way of getting them. I also sent to Bond [in Pontiac] for a pair over two months ago, but they have not come yet.

Which of the Miss Porters did Will Mullin marry? Is Jos. Mullin married yet? We were Chums together at College for over a year. I believe I am not acquainted with the Miss Parsons that Charlie Mullin married, unless it be a daughter of the old man who formerly kept the “Mansion House.”⁶ I wish Sister Jennie may be fully as successful as before. Remember me kindly to her & Harry.

I have sat many an hour with the little clock before me, trying to master some knotty problem in Trigonomotry or in the translation of Greek or Latin.⁷ I love those relics of earlier life, & often wished when at home I had more of them around me. If you inquire of Mother, you can learn perhaps what has become of my old manuscripts. I left them in an old wooden chest in my room. You might find matters of interest perhaps among them; & also among my first Compositions. I wrote a long story once for print & put it in a secret drawer of the old chest under the till. I do not know what ever became of it; I often wished I had it. It was in part an autobiography of myself & contains many things I should like to read now.

Sergeant Howard of Co. “H” died on Friday night.⁸ I did not learn his disease.

You will find enclosed 4 Photographs to put in your Album. I shall go on Picket duty in the morning. Unless the weather changes, it will be quite a cold job.

There is no prospect of our moving to the front or leaving this place. We are fixing up in anticipation of a winter’s stay.

I wish you would write to Mother [Murphy] to send me the sealed package in the little drawer of which I wrote in a former letter.⁹ I do not know where to direct her to find the key, or I would write to her.

Will you come directly here or by the way of Pontiac?¹⁰ If you come by Pontiac, I have some things I wish you to do. I have thought you would be compelled to go there perhaps for your winter clothing. Let me know the amount of money Remick sends you upon my order. It will assist me to determine possibly how affairs stand there.

My health is very good. I hope Frankie will very soon be able to be around. May God bless you both abundantly.

Did you get the Album & pictures? Christ Yetter has promised me one soon, also Nathan Hill.¹¹

Give my love to all the family, & Remember me kindly to all our friends. Hoping very soon to hear that you will be abie to come, I remain as ever,

Your Affect. Husband
J. F. Culver

1. Mary Culver’s letter of September 27 is missing from the Culver Collection.
2. The First Cumberland Presbyterian Church was on the west side of Summer Street, between Church and Broad.
3. See J.F.C.’s letter of September 7, 1863, for an account of the way he was received by a different congregation.
4. Mrs. Eliza Fitch of Fairbury was the 30-year-old wife of 1st Lieutenant Benjamin F. Fitch of Company E. She had previously visited her husband when the regiment was camped at Mitchellville in the winter of 1862-63.
5. General Hooker was at Stevenson. His XI Corps was at Bridgeport, while units of the XII Corps guarded the railroad between Stevenson and Wartrace against raids by Rebel cavalry. General Sherman, with four divisions 17,000-strong from Grant’s Army of the Tennessee, had reached Memphis from Vicksburg. As fast as the troops disembarked from steamboats, they were shuttled to Corinth, Miss., by rail. O. R., Ser. I, Vol. XXX, pt. IV, pp. 49, 52, 90-91, 111.
6. In her letter of Sept. 27, Mary Culver discussed the marital affairs of the Mullin brothers. Sarah, Fannie, Martha, and Ida were the daughters of William and Martha Porter. The father was editor of one of the Carlisle newspapers. Sarah was 25 and Fannie 23. Charles H. (30), William A. (28), and Alfred F. (26) Mullin were residents of South Middleton Township. The two older men helped their father manage and operate the Union Paper Mill. Alfred “Fos” Mullin was a teacher. It has been impossible to identify further Miss Parsons. Eighth Census, Cumberland County, State of Pennsylvania. NA.
7. Mary Culver, in her letter of the 27th, must have referred to a clock at her mother-in-law’s, of which J.F.C. had fond memories.
8. Newton Howard, a 27-year-old Winchester attorney, had been mustered into service on Sept. 8, 1862, as a sergeant in Company H, 129th Illinois. Sergeant Howard died in the regimental hospital at Nashville on Oct. 2, 1863 of typhoid fever. Compiled Service Records of Union Soldiers, NA.
9. The sealed package contained a will J.F.C. had drafted before his September 1862 departure from Pontiac. For additional information on the will see J.F.C.’s letter of September 19.
10. In her letter of the 27th, Mary Culver had written of plans to visit her husband at an early date.
11. Nathan W. Hill of Pontiac was a private in Company A.

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Calling all Biological and Medical scientists! The University Libraries is pleased to begin supporting PeerJ memberships for all interested University of Iowa faculty and researchers through the Open Access Fund. The University Libraries and the Office of the Provost established the Open Access Fund to pay the processing fees related to open access publishing.

Open-access (OA) literature is digital, online, free of charge, and free of most copyright and licensing restrictions. – Peter Suber

PeerJ is an Open Access publisher of scholarly articles in the biological and medical sciences [full list of subject areas]. Rather than charging a per-article fee for making an article Open Access, PeerJ charges a one-time membership fee for authors [Breakdown of membership types]. All interested UI faculty, graduate students, and research should contact Chris Diaz for more information about setting up a PeerJ membership.

Head Qrs. Co. “A” 129th Ills. Vol. Infty.
Nashville, Tenn., Octr. 2nd 1863

My Dear Wife

I wrote a note hastily to-day & intended to enclose Bro. Johnie’s letter, but the drum beat for drill, &, in my haste, I neglected to put it in. Please find it enclosed herein.

I wrote a short note to Mother [Murphy] to-day, informing her that he [Brother Johnny] was well, thinking that she would feel uneasy.

I shall look anxiously for a letter from you every day until Frankie gets better. You cannot imagine [how glad] I was this morning to receive your second letter dated but one day after your other informing me of his illness.¹ I know you are taxed heavily, but if you can only write a line to tell me how he is. I hope to be able to get this into to-night’s mail; I am not sure of success but will try. I must therefore be brief.

Troops are still passing through here in large numbers.² I saw Maj. Genrl. Hooker to-day. He is on his way to the front to take some command.³ It is reported Burnside’s, but we hope that is not true.⁴

We are all enjoying good health. It has rained quite hard for two days. It is quite cool at present. I will write to Bro. Johnie to-night. He requested me to send him some of your letters which I will do. They will give him pleasure.

In my distribution of photographs, I did not have enough & could not send Mother one. I will get more as soon as I am able. I sent one to Maggie [Utley] which I had long ago promised. Enclosed find Capt. Reed’s which he gave me this evening on promise that I would return the compliment. [Lt.] Smith claimed one for his wife which I promised, & Capt. Hoskins one in return for his. I sent one to Sarah Williams, & Christ Yetter took one, & another disappeared.

The Boys are all in good Spirits. Alf [Huetson] is singing the songs you sent, & waiting for this letter to go to the office with it. He wants to get the Ledger. You never mentioned the receipt of the “Nashville Union” I sent you. Did you receive it? We have no late news; everything from the front is contraband. Our Landlady had an opportunity to let the room I engaged to-day, & I told her to let it go.⁵ There are others to be had in the vicinity. When Frankie gets well, & you determine the time you will come I will make arrangements.

Give my love to all the family & Remember me to all our friends. Mrs. Smith is still quite poorly but talks of returning soon. If she gets able to travel, she will surely come. Kiss Frankie for me. May God grant him speedy health. I shall not forget to pray for you both. I have written in haste. Good night.

Your Affect. Husband
J. F. Culver

1. Mary Culver’s letter of September 25 is missing from the Culver Collection.
2. The last of the trains with General Howard’s XI Corps infantry having passed through Nashville on the 30th, those with foot-soldiers of Maj. Gen. Henry C. Slocum’s XII Corps were now traveling through the city. O. R., Ser. I, Vol. XXX, pt. IV, p. 49.
3. Maj. Gen. Joseph Hooker commanded the two corps from the Army of the Potomac en route to help drive the Confederates from the approaches to Chattanooga. Hooker left Nashville late on the 2d, and reached Stevenson early next morning. Ibid.
4. There was no truth to the rumor that General Hooker was to replace General Burnside as commander of the Department of the Ohio. Burnside was at Knoxville with most of his field army.
5. In anticipation of an early visit by his wife and son, J.F.C. had engaged a room for them near the camp of the 129th Illinois.