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3. Friends and Foes
- Louisiana State University Press
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chapter 3 Friends and Foes After receiving some sort of slight from townspeople in Yorkshire Center a few weeks after her husband left for the front, Mary Chittenden sat down to compose a sad letter. “I had my feelings hurt very much this morning,” she confided, “& O Wm. how my heart went forth to the absent one it seemed as if my heart would burst with grief but William I have made up my mind to let my neighbors alone as far as I can & live by my self till William comes home.” Two weeks later, William Chittenden remarked to his wife, “Some are very unwilling to help a soldiers family little thinking how many inconveniences their families are subject to.”1 Early in 1864, William Charles was incredulous to learn that the wife of his tent mate, David Williams, had taken in a disreputable boarder. “Can she be so foolish as to forsake her own husband bring woe and wretchedness upon her family and bring upon herself Eternal Damnation, for the sake of so vile a creature as Tom Rees,” Charles asked his wife. If Williams knew what was going on, Charles declared, “it would kill him, I do believe.” Later that year, Charles commented on additional scandalous news. “I understand that John Davis has been disgracing himself lately by conducting himself towards a Soldiers Wife in such a manner that would make any thing but a drunkard hate himself to death,” he wrote. “It is well for him that some of the Soldiers that are here did not kech him at it they would [have] shot him as quick and with about the same feeling as they would a skunk.”2 Unsympathetic neighbors and unfaithful wives were just two of many home front issues that worried the soldiers. Personal concerns were legion. Were their families enjoying good health? Were they able to keep up with work on the farm? Did they have enough money to get by? Beyond individual concerns, however, other apprehensions lurked. Did the people of Cattaraugus and Chautauqua counties support the war effort and the Lincoln administration? Would they continue to show that support as the war ground on? Would they offer their money, their votes, and their men for the 54 friends and foes Union cause? To the soldiers of the 154th New York, imbued with esprit de corps, there was only one acceptable answer to those questions. “It is one thing to sing rally Round the Flag and another thing to do it,” Charles Abell observed. “I have found that out by experience.” The men knew that home front support was essential to their well-being. “Do what you can for the benefit of the soldiers,” Abell advised his parents, “for they need all that they get if I were at home I should Just go right in and give them a little lift I reckon.” “I intend to help pick the bone and I want the friends at home to do by [us] just as they agreed and then all will be well,” Barzilla Merrill wrote. “Dont make us think that we are in straight opposition to our friends at home,” First Sergeant James W. Baxter of Company I pleaded to one of those home friends.3 “Mother you have enough to see to at home without worrying or wishing you could help the wounded Soldiers,” Marcellus Darling cautioned, but his sentiment was rare. The soldiers overwhelmingly sought and indeed expected the support of the home folk, and scorned those who refused or were reluctant to provide it. When William Charles’s wife went around Freedom collecting “little comforts for the sick and wounded Soldiers,” she met with some miserly responses. One neighbor donated only a couple of old shirts; a relative offered nothing. Charles was irate when he heard the news. “The man that cannot afford to give anything to a sick and wounded Soldier, is poor indeed,” he wrote. “Cannot give anything to those who have given their all.”4 For their part, loved ones offered reassurances of fealty to their soldiers. “If I was a bird how quick I would fly down South to see you and all of our brave Soldiers boys,” Martha James assured Samuel Williams. She continued , “I think of them evry day yes I think of thee when all is still.” Mary Chittenden encouraged William to stay the course but be cautious. “I want you to keep up good courage & not worry about home any more than...