Newly Published Letters Show Little Known Part of War

[ami]

Newly Published Letters Show Little Known Part of War

May 8, 2002--The battle for Fort Blakely in Mobile Bay, Ala., on April 9, 1865 was a thoroughly obscure fight, one of the many claimants to the title of "the last major engagement of the war." It was fought a few hours after Gen. Robert E. Lee had surrendered to Gen. Ulysses S. Grant in Virginia.

It wasn't obscure to James Kelso, though. The member of the 2nd New York Veterans' Cavalry was nearby, although not directly involved in the fighting, and wrote about it in one of many letters he sent to his wife Martha back in Minerva, New York during his time in the Civil War.

Those letters home have now been published by one of Kelso's descendants, great-grandson Rev. James Lavery, who edited the letters with his wife, Kathryn. He said he published them for Kelso's descendants and those interested in Civil War history.

Kelso was a latecomer to military service, Lavery noted, whose motivation for enlistment was the $1000 bounty available in his part of New York. The Irish-born Kelso, who came to America at the age of 18, was now a 32 year old farmer with a young wife and four children to support.

His first letter home, from Troy on Aug. 21, 1864, was devoted to telling Martha how the $1,000 should be used. "Now I want you to look out and not fool it off for when I get back I shall want it," Kelso warned. Much of his cavalry service was in various parts of Alabama.

"I cannot tell where we are going as the cavalry may be here today and 100 miles from here tomorrow," he wrote from Blakely, Ala., on April 8, 1865.

The frequent moves may have been prompted by an understandable wish to avoid irate local citizens after foraging expeditions.

"I tell you," Kelso wrote on Jan. 19, 1865, "when we go out, we live well for we help ourselves to whatever we can get hold of. I killed six hens and two geese. The first night we was out Flaraty and I had all the hens and geese and hotcake we wanted and the last night we killed a hog."

"My main motivation in doing this was to get something into the hands of all his descendants and relatives," Lavery told the Ballston Spa (NY) Daily Gazette. The history buff said the letters provide insight into Adirondack farming and tell the story of the relatively unknown battle front along the Gulf of Mexico.

"The night before we left Blakely, it was awful to hear the cannonading," Kelso wrote six weeks after the battle. "It made the ground tremble where we laid. Well I cannot describe it to you."

Fort Blakely was one of the outer defensive positions guarding Mobile Bay. Kelso's last letter was written from Alabama on Aug. 13, 1865. He said he expected to get home about the middle of September. He also told Martha he expected an accounting of the original $1,000 enlistment bonus, plus $120 he had sent her during the year. Kelso fathered five more children after his return.

The letters Martha may have sent to James Kelso were never found. The letters James sent were nearly lost as well when the house in which they were stored was sold by a Kelso descendant in 1977. The buyer found the letters, in a box marked "Helder's Cheese Sticks", along with a quantity of other old documents and photographs. The papers were later returned to the Lavery family.

Civil War Interactive: The Daily Newspaper of the Civil War
www.civilwarinteractive.com

That story is very interesting...

Josh