Introduction

William A. Smith was a native resident of Marion County, Illinois up to the time of the Civil War.  His letters to his wife Mary contain a wealth of information about the people from Marion County and the people who fought in the war, on both sides, and gives names and places where events took place.  William saw slavery for the first time in his life and gives a brief account of what he witnessed.  The collection of William’s letters comes together like a novel, filled with suspense, emotion, human frailty, and tragedy.

Genealogists and Civil War historians will find these letters to be a treasure of mundane information including prices for clothing and food, a soldier’s inventory, the types of plants grown on family farms, and the attitudes of our ancestors more than 150 years ago.  It is interesting to see how William’s view of slavery dramatically evolves within one year, during 1862.

These letters were given to me by Marion Brimberry of Alma, IL with the request to type them up and make them available on the Internet.  Marion Brimberry received copies of the letters from Carol Wood of Sandoval, IL.   I don’t know where the originals are or who first transcribed them.

There were obvious typographical errors in the letters I typed from, plus there were obvious grammatical errors from the originals.  When appropriate, the typographical errors were corrected and generally the grammatical errors were left unchanged.  There is also the likelihood of additional errors input by me.  In particular, the misspelled word “waggon” was left as it appears in the letters I received.

The genealogical information that follows was provided by Melvin and Carol Wood and is available online at Rootsweb WorldConnet as simcox-wood.

I hope you will enjoy these letters as much as I did.  If you’re like me, you’ll want to go back and investigate some of the letters in greater detail.

www.thomson-genealogy.com

David Thomson
518 Illinois St.
Alma, IL  62807

Civil War Letters of William A. Smith and Genealogy, David W. Thomson III, 2003

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