To Rescue My Native Land: The Civil War Letters of William T. Shepherd, First Illinois Light Artillery, and: A Civil War Soldier’s Diary: Valentine C. Randolph, 39th Illinois Regiment (review)

These two worthy volumes augment an already bountiful library of editions of Civil War soldiers’ letters and diaries. Each title contains the writings of one soldier in a Illinois volunteer unit. These soldiers were devout Protestant Christians and expressive writers, recounting their spiritual journeys as well as their military peregrinations in the service of the United States. Both soldiers resisted reenlistment and mustered out at the end of their three-year terms, either eager to get on in civilian life or worn out from soldiering. Both volumes serve to illustrate the intersection of religious faith, patriotism, and duty and the yen for adventure in the lives of young northern enlisted men.

William T. Shepherd was born and grew up in Kenosha, Wisconsin, where he attended public schools. While still a teenager he went to work in Chicago, Illinois, as a bookkeeper. Caught up in the frenzy of indignation in the aftermath of the attack on Fort Sumter, he enlisted in the 1st Illinois Light Artillery regiment, the Chicago Light Artillery. Sent to Cairo, Illinois, and then guarding the Mississippi River in Missouri, Shepherd saw action early on at the battles of Fredericktown and Belmont and provided vivid accounts of his experiences in battle. Later, he and his battery shipped down the Cumberland and Tennessee Rivers with Brigadier General Grant’s expedition against Forts Henry and Donelson. Shepherd wrote a long, detailed account of the hard fighting near Donelson. Soon thereafter, Shepherd and his battery were engulfed in the horrors of Shiloh, where he again escaped harm. The aftermath of battle found him shocked and dazed.

Shepherd subsequently succeeded in applying his business skills to secure a desk job in the ordnance department at Memphis. He witnessed the Vicksburg campaign while attached to Gen. William T. Sherman’s Fifteenth Army Corps headquarters and wrote vividly of witnessing the successful running of Vicksburg’s rebel batteries by a portion of Adm. David Porter’s fleet. Written from his behind-the-lines vantage point, Shepherd’s letters switch from battle and camp scenes to accounts of skirmishes with young Southern ladies, with whom he chastely flirted, and observations of freed slaves in the occupied South.

Valentine C. Randolph’s diary began in September 1861, on his enlistment. A college student from rural Illinois, Randolph wrote musings that reflect his elite education and devout Christianity. The 39th Illinois, first sent to Missouri, was dispatched east to the Army of the Potomac, where it participated in the Shenandoah and Peninsular campaigns. In 1863 it participated in operations in North and South Carolina. Randolph did little fighting until his regiment rejoined the Army of the Potomac for Gen. Nathaniel Banks’s James River operations outside Richmond. The regiment suffered heavy casualties during the fighting at Drewry’s Bluff in May 1864. Randolph was slightly wounded twice in continued fighting. His well-written diary entries provide an easily readable mixture of classic travel-writing descriptions and observations on the immorality and monotony of soldier life.

While the editors of both volumes are to be commended for their labors, the reader wishes that greater effort had been given to identifying the many biblical and literary quotations both soldiers used, as well as references both soldiers made to events occurring around them. Moreover, Shepherd, who received several hometown and Chicago newspapers, frequently complained to his father about seeing his letters published in the newspapers. Yet, except in one instance, Hackemer does not note where the letters appear. Editors Roe and Wise especially should be taken to task for making no effort in their...