By Susan Martin, Senior Processing Archivist

This is the eighth installment in a series. Click here to read Part I, Part II, Part III, Part IV, Part V, Part VI, and Part VII.

Thanks to those of you who’ve been following the story of Pvt. Howard J. Ford of the 43rd Massachusetts Infantry Regiment here at the Beehive. I’ve enjoyed doing this deep dive into his Civil War experiences, as told in his own words.

The weeks following my previous post consisted of alternating periods of dull routine and bustling activity. Howard’s company was stationed at New Bern, N.C., and was involved in various patrols, marches, and skirmishes in the area, including the successful defense of New Bern on the one-year anniversary of its capture by the Union and a fight at Blounts Creek. After the latter, Howard confessed that he was so tired, “If I was 50 last night, I was 70 years old tonight.”

There are a few general themes that recur in Howard’s journal during this time.

Moments of Quiet

I’ve often felt the most moving passages in soldiers’ reminiscences are those moments of peace and quiet juxtaposed against the violence. For example, the day after Howard killed a Confederate soldier, he wrote, “I saw one little violet in bloom on the battlefield. It was the first wild one I have seen and I will send it home.” He also described standing so still on picket duty at dawn that birds approached within a few feet of him. Of course, nothing made a soldier more wistful than letters from home; Howard missed his “good wife,” “darling boy” (3 years), and “little daughter” (7 months).

The Troops’ Resourcefulness

Howard attended a party in camp featuring music, recitations, and even ventriloquism. He was “astonished” by one musician in particular, who had crafted a violin from a hard tack box! “As to the workmanship,” he said, “no one would have suspected its humble origin. The glue even was made in camp.” According to Edward Rogers’ history of the regiment, “a camp of Yankees is a jack-knife paradise” (p. 128). Many of the soldiers were skilled artisans, after all. As I discussed in a previous post, Howard and friends built their own barracks from the ground up. Howard also made a ring for his wife out of a piece of bone.

Civilians and Soldiers

Civilian visits to camp, like one in March 1863 by the proprietor of the Boston Journal, were pleasant interludes, but also jarring ones. Howard wrote that, “A person in citizen’s dress looks as odd to us, as a monkey does to the children, when it is dressed up in a skirt and cap.” Edward Rogers agreed: “Amid warlike scenes,” civilians looked, well, ridiculous. “We were at home: they were not. Our individuality had been merged in each other until every man felt, in some respects, as though he had the strength of a thousand” (p. 135).

Cpl. James K. Odell

Howard’s admiration for James Kelley Odell is clear. Odell, a corporal in Howard’s company, was one of a large family originally from New Hampshire. He’d lost both of his parents by the time he was 21, as well as an older brother who’d accidentally shot himself as a teenager. Now Odell was 29 and had a wife and child back home. Here’s what Howard had to say about him: “I well know that he would stick by me if I met with harm, no matter what the consequences were.” On a grueling 15-mile march, in spite of weak lungs, “Odell stood it like a hero.” James K. Odell died in 1918 at the age of 84.

Tricks of the Trade

I enjoyed reading about the tactics used by soldiers to outwit the enemy. One night on picket duty, Howard, waiting silently in the dark by the side of the road, was more amused than scared when he heard curiously similar cow bells ringing from opposite sides of the road, as well as suspiciously human-like roosters. (“Perhaps the reason he did not crow any better was that he was somewhat sleepy.”) Howard also introduced me to “Quaker cannons,” logs mounted on cart wheels and painted like cannons to intimidate the enemy. Both the Union and the Confederacy used them.

I hope you’ll join me for the next installment!

By Susan Martin, Senior Processing Archivist

This is the seventh installment in a series. Click here to read Part I, Part II, Part III, Part IV, Part V, and Part VI.

This post contains descriptions of graphic violence.

In this series about the Civil War journal of Howard J. Ford, I’ve argued that Howard’s journal paints a particularly vivid picture of the war. His use of sensory details makes it feel like you’re right there with him. Today I’d like to focus exclusively on his entry for 20 February 1863, an entry that begins: “Today is a great day in my term of service as a soldier.” In it, Howard describes a chilling encounter with an unnamed Confederate soldier that illustrates, in stark terms, the brutality of war.

When we left off a few weeks ago, Howard’s company (Company I of the 43rd Massachusetts Infantry Regiment) was enjoying some quiet days of picket duty at Evans’ Mill, not far from New Bern, North Carolina. Then Howard was selected to go on a scouting mission.

After dinner the Captain requested Odell through a sargent [sic] to take 4 trusty men and examine a certain road […] He selected of course, first, his friend H.J.F. then Mr. Snow and then 2 young men by the name of Brooks and Ashworth. (Lowell boys.)

The scouting group consisted of Cpl. James K. Odell; Harold himself (H.J.F.); Pvt. Russell L. Snow, who we met in Part VI; Pvt. Sager Brooks, an immigrant from England; and the youngest of the five, 19-year-old Pvt. Charles Ashworth.

We entered the road at the picket station, found a blocade [sic] all right, and pushed through till we reached the Pollocksville road without seeing anything suspicious. We were now keeping our eyes open for “signs” of rebels when we discovered tracks in the road. […] Now we were thoroughly awake and proceeded on slowly, examining the ground and the country round us with great care.

It wasn’t long before things went sideways.

We suddenly came on a Southerner crawling across the road on his belly. […] When he found himself discovered and that we were gaining on him he fired on us from a concealed weapon. Being 5 against one we seemed to have no fear of harm coming to us. Our bayonets were in our sheathes but our guns were loaded yet we did not seem to think of it but rushed to the attack determined to make way him as quickly as possible. Snow […] led the attack with cries of “kill him” and gave the old sneak a tremendous blow right in the middle of the back. I felt for an instant only some pangs of conscience at killing him but that is our business just now and my courage returning I instantly followed Snow with a crack on the head from my own rifle. I felt that it was but a merciful act as after Snow’s blow the reb was speechless though evidently in a suffering state. I repeated the blow on the head and he lay lifeless in the road.

Keep in mind, Howard was sending this journal home to his family in installments. In my experience, this kind of explicit account was rare for the time. Most soldiers shielded their families from the gruesome details—or avoided discussing them for reasons of their own mental health. Howard continued,

We were obliged to leave the mangled body where it fell for the present & continue to carry out the instructions of the Captain. The corporal who could hardly conceal his satisfaction at the result of his scout thus far, now led the way into the woods on the right.

Interestingly, Howard returned to the subject the next day.

I hope my relatives will not be alarmed at the dangerous position they may think we got into the other day. I hope you will approve the manner in which we killed the snake.

Howard volunteered for several more scouting trips in the days following this “great” and “exciting” event. On 1 March 1863, his company returned to Camp Rogers at New Bern. Stay tuned to the Beehive for more of Howard’s story.

By Susanna Sigler, Processing Assistant

I’ll be the first to confess it: I’m a notebook fiend.

It started innocently enough. Now, the collection I’ve amassed (and several times purged) should be enough to sustain me through at least ten Great American Novels. If only, of course, I actually wrote in any of these books for more than a few months at a time. As the child of a self-proclaimed Moleskine addict and a collector (and actual filler) of sketchbooks, I had no chance.

This is all to say that when I came across a set of 18th century ladies’ memorandum books in the Price-Osgood-Valentine papers, I was delighted and intrigued.

Printed in England and marketed towards upper-class women as a sort of daily planner, these books offered space to keep track of dates and household expenses as well as advice on topics such as marriage, managing staff (servants), parenting, and fashion.

Additional sections vary from book to book; one might include the line of succession to the English crown and currency tables, another the steps to popular dances and the songs that accompany them. My personal favorite is a section on monthly meal planning with a page of dinner ideas–“tripe fry’d,” anyone? In collections services at the MHS, we also found hilarious a section of riddles for which the reader had to wait until next year’s edition to find out the answers.

These planners offer a glimpse into the lives of the women who bought and used them, what was expected of them by English society at large, how they were being told to live their lives and with what responsibilities of person and home.

One essay, printed at the beginning of one of these books, is titled “Maxims for the LADIES concerning The ART of PLEASING.”

A few select quotes (I have taken the liberty of changing the 18th century f’s to s’s):

“It seems as if the Author of Nature, by giving Beauty of Person, and Softness of Manners to the Female Sex, intended their principal Business should be to please.”

“Modesty, is a young Maiden, is Sensibility check’d by Delicacy. It is the first and most pleasing Virtue of a Woman, as it is a proof her heart is capable of Love, and a Presumption that it will continue pure and uncorrupted. She who has no Sensibility, can have no Modesty.

“Cultivate in your Breast the Virtues of Mildness and Good-nature; for depend upon it, there is no Fiend that a Man would not sooner choose to be tormented with, than with that hideous Creature call’d a Woman of Spirit. A Woman of Spirit is a fallen Angel chang’d into a fury.”

I will resist the urge to get the last one printed on a t-shirt.

Most strikingly, aside from their language, these essays are almost exactly identical to newspaper articles I’ve read from the 1930s through the 1950s as well as women’s magazines through the mid-aughts, and, dare I say, the social media of today – the “divine feminine” of certain slices of the so-called wellness industry, and the “girl dinners” of TikTok.

The next essay, “Maxims for Wives,” takes on more of a knowing tone, like it’s being written with a wink. “Art thou marry’d?” it asks. “Alas poor Woman, thou hast parted with thy Liberty!” However, it does not stray from its main message. “[T]here are Ways and Means to make this Lord of thine the kindest and most agreeable Friend thou could’st have had.” It ends with the following advice: “Observe the Temper of your Husband: conform to it when it is good, and calmly submit where you think it otherwise, and you will have learnt the hardest Lesson in the Art of Pleasing.”

Physically, the books were once beautiful objects–they still are, although the leather is now worn and the ribbons frayed. It made me yearn for an updated version: a pocket-sized planner with good paper and a nice cover, with space for notes as well as helpful information. For instance, train timetables readily at hand (though maybe we could have a reliable train schedule to start), some book or movie recommendations, or essays on how not to abandon a journal two weeks into starting it. The most comforting aspect of these books, I’ve found, is that none of them have been completely filled.

The books can be viewed here at the MHS as part of the Price-Osgood-Valentine papers.