Allegany to Appomattox: The Life and Letters of Private William Whitlock of the 188th New York Volunteers

9. Faith and Fighting

129 9 Faith and Fighting From Letter 11 Rebel Farm Oct. 30 . . . 64 Dear Lide . . . All the objection I have to joining the Church is this: if I live to come home I dont think I shal stay in that country. If you think best I am willing. You can do as you like and you will suit me. . . . From Letter 17 Camp Near the yelow house Nov. 17 . . . 64 Dear wife . . . Lide, as far as joining the Church is concerned joyn it if they will take us in. tel them to remember me in thear prayrs for I think I need them. I dont think that I could write enything that would be fit to read before the Church so I guess I wont try. . . . From Letter 20 Our old Camp Nov. 25 . . . 64 Well Lide . . . Yesterday was Thanksgiving. in the morning at nine oclock we had a battalion dril then the whole Brigade marched to head quarters and we had a good surmon and a number of officers and 130  Allegany to Appomattox privets spoke and then we were dismissed. I wish you could have heard our general speak. I find that most of our officers are good Christians and I am very thankful for it. . . . From Letter 33 Jan. 15th . . . 65 My Ever Dear Wife . . . Lide acording to the acounts in the papers they are trying close up this war and God grant that they may for I tel you it is an owffal thing. . . . From Letter 35 Jan. 22nd . . . 65 My Dear Wife . . . I tel you our General has ben at work bilding a church. today it was dedicated. I did not have time to go for I had to make been soup for dinner and boil poark this after noon. theay are having meetings this evening but I woint to write to you so you se I cant go to night but I can hear them for the church is not ten rods from the cook house. it is thirty feet wide and sixty feet long. it is coveard with tent cloth the same as our tents are but it is a big peace of cloth. the christian commision furnished the cloth for it. . . . William Whitlock was born into a family that had a Christian heritage . One of thirteen children, he was raised in an atmosphere that focused on the church starting when his grandparents joined the First Presbyterian Church of what is now Ithaca, New York, in 1816.1 As 1. Jean D. Worden, “Records from the First Presbyterian Church of Ithaca,” 1983, p. 128, Tompkins County New York Church Records, Manuscript no. 4045, Box 27, Cornell Univ. Archives, Ithaca, NY. Faith and Fighting  131 he noted in his letters home to Lide, he continued to attend services regularly after he signed on to the 188th, starting in training camp at Elmira and extending through his military career in and around the trenches in Petersburg, Virginia. He was very pleased that numerous comrades as well as officers were fellow Christians. He recognized that he and his family were in the hands of “providence” with respect to both the ending of the war and his and his family’s health and welfare . Soldiers on both sides of the war often referred to God as “providence ” when describing God’s action in the world (Woodworth 2001, 29). James Theaker, Company F, 154th Ohio, said in July 1864, when only one member of his company had been wounded and none killed so far in the war, “I sometimes think that I can plainly see a Providential hand connected with our company so far. I do not put my trust in any arm of flesh nor in heavy battalions of men, but in Him who rules the armies and holds the destiny of the nation in His hands” (Theaker 1974, 118–19). In a letter to his mother, Richard Crowe of the 32nd Wisconsin uses phrases from Christ’s Sermon on the Mount to remind his mother that the “Supreme protecting power over us knows the number of our hairs and if a sparrow falls. Providence would only will what is best and good for us.”2 In his letters home, Will mentions very little about his comrades’ daily behavior. In fact, he has more comments on the behavior of folks back home in western New York. When he first arrived at training camp in Elmira...