Letters from the Civil War: Thomas Vance (Letters dated September 28, 1863 – April 3, 1864)

Nine letters that Thomas wrote during the Civil War were preserved and sent to Bowling Green State University. The letters dating between April 8, 1862 and April 3, 1864 were written to the Vance family by Thomas while he was serving with Company I, 69th Ohio Volunteer Infantry.

Below are Thomas’ letters dated September 28, 1863 – April 3, 1864. The September 28, 1863 letter was written after the Battle of Chickamauga (the 69th was primarily employed as a train guard during battle as mentioned in the letter).

As you can see after reading his letters, Thomas grew and matured during his time in the army. His style of writing started out in 1862 with no capitalization and just short little “sentences”. By the last letter in 1864, while his spelling and punctuation were still erratic, his comments were more astute and his style smoother.

See the letters here http://bit.ly/1RMvWAq