Researching JA Scudder 65th Indiana

rickvox79

First Sergeant
Joined
Jan 27, 2011
Location
Pace, FL
Continuing this from my first post on the new members section.

My grandmother on my mother's side told me that I had a relative (great-great-great grandfather) that served during the Civil War and passed along copies of original letters and transcribed letters that he had written during his time of service. I found them to be extremely interesting and I was able to track down more information on him. His name was John Scudder and he was an assistant surgeon in the 65th Indiana Infantry. So he wasn't a combatant but his letters still spoke of their movements, successes and failures.

I have probably around 12-13 letters that he wrote to his wife between 1863 and 1864. Nine of the letters are copies of the original that look like they were copied with a copy machine. Four of the letters are typed up and transcribed from the originals. I have read over the originals and thought about typing them up but admit I can't make out some of the words.

Here is one that is typed up dated Nov 1st 1863 from Henderson Station, 4 miles east of Greenville, Tenn. I scanned it to PDF and uploaded it here:

http://pdfcast.org/pdf/ja-scudder-11-1-1863

I thought it was neat that he called Grant by his nickname "Unconditional Surrender Grant" also mentioning Rosecrans and Burnside and their offensive against Bragg.

The second letter is a copy of the original that is not transcribed. I can't make out everything on the first page but I thought the second page was very interesting. The link is here:

https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&...k2OWYtZDM2NzFhZmMwNjdh&hl=en&authkey=CLC1t44B

Forgive my ignorance but is the paper he typing on some sort of paper used to document the amount of troops, officers etc? I noticed at the bottom he wrote "for paper and you will" so I'm guessing he is explaining why he used that paper, maybe only paper he had available? Anyway, this is one of the more unreadable letters I have, the majority are legible for the most part.
 
Here....


John A. Scudder (First_Last)Regiment Name 65 Indiana InfantrySide Union Company F&S Soldier's Rank_In A. Surg. Soldier's Rank_Out A. Surg. Alternate Name Notes

UNION INDIANA VOLUNTEERS


65th Regiment, Indiana Infantry

Organized at Princeton, Ind., and mustered in August 18, 1862. Company "K~' mustered in September 10, 1862, and joined Regiment at Madisonville, Ky. Left State for Henderson, Ky., August 20, 1862. Served unassigned, District of Western Kentucky, Dept. of Ohio, to June, 1863. 1st Brigade, 2nd Division, 23rd Army Corps, Army of Ohio, to August, 1863. 2nd Brigade, 4th Division, 23rd Army Corps, to October, 1863. 4th Brigade, 4th Division, 23rd Army Corps, to November, 1863. 2nd Brigade, 2nd Cavalry Division, Dept. of the Ohio, to April, 1864. 2ad Brigade, 3rd Division, 23rd Army Corps, Army of the Ohio, to February, 1865, and Dept. of North Carolina to June, 1865.

SERVICE.-Action at Madisonville, Ky., August 25, 1862. Guard duty along line of Louisville & Nashville Railroad till August, 1863. Skirmish at Bradenburg, Ky., September 12, 1862, and at Henderson, Ky., September 14, 1862 (Co. "D"). Regiment mounted April, 1863. Action at Cheshire, Ohio, July 21, 1863. Dixon July 29 (Co. "E"). Burnside's Campaign in East Tennessee August 16-October 17. Occupation of Knoxville September 2. Action at Greenville September 11. Kingsport September 18. Bristol September 19. Zollicoffer September 20-21. Carter's Depot September 20-21. Jonesborough September 21. Hall's Ford, Watauga River, September 22. Carter's Depot September 22. Blue Springs October 10. Henderson's Mill and Rheatown October 11. Blountsville October 14. Bristol October 15. Knoxville Campaign November 4-December 23. Mulberry Gap November 19. Walker's Ford, Clinch River, December 2. Near Maynardsville December 12. Bean's Station December 14. Blain's Cross Roads December 16-19. Kimbrough's Cross Roads January 16, 1864. Operations about Dandridge January 16-17 and January 26-28. Dandridge January 17. Scout to Chucky Bend March 12. Regiment dismounted April 21, 1864. Atlanta (Ga.) Campaign May 1-September 8. Demonstrations on Rocky Faced Ridge and Dalton May 8-13. Battle of Resaca May 14-15. Cartersville May 20. Operations on line of Pumpkin Vine Creek and battles about Dallas, New Hope Church and Allatoona Hills May 25-June 5. Operations about Marietta and against Kenesaw Mountain June 10-July 2. Lost Mountain June 15-17. Muddy Creek June 17. Cheyney's Farm June 22. Olley's Farm June 26-27. Assault on Kenesaw June 27. Nickajack Creek July 2-5. Chattahoochie River July 5-17. Isham's Ford July 8. Siege of Atlanta July 22-August 25. Utoy Creek August 5-7. Flank movement on Jonesboro August 25-30. Near Rough and Ready August 31. Lovejoy's Station September 2-6. Decatur September 28. Pursuit of Hood into Alabama October 3-26. Nashville Campaign November-December. Columbia, Duck River, November 24-27. Battle of Franklin November 30. Battle of Nashville December 15-16. Pursuit of Hood to the Tennessee River December 17-28. At Clifton, Tenn., till January 16, 1865. Movement to Washington, D. C., thence to Fort Fisher, N. C., January 16-February 9. Operations against Hoke February 11-14. Sugar Leaf Battery February 11. Fort Anderson February 18-19. Town Creek February 19-20. Capture of Wilmington February 22. Campaign of the Carolinas March 1-April 26. Advance on Goldsboro March 6-21. Advance on Raleigh April 10-14. Occupation of Raleigh April 14. Bennett's House April 26. Surrender of Johnston and his army. Duty at Raleigh and Greensboro till June. Mustered out June 22, 1865.

Regiment lost during service 34 Enlisted men killed and mortally wounded and 4 Officers and 216 Enlisted men by disease. Total 254.
 
Looks like the famous doc is John M. Scudder, not John A.

Might be a relative, though.

There's also a Dr. John Scudder who was a medical missionary to India, as well as a British doc who helped develop blood transfusions, according to Google.

So you might want to be careful not to get them all mixed up.
 
Forgive my ignorance but is the paper he typing on some sort of paper used to document the amount of troops, officers etc? I noticed at the bottom he wrote "for paper and you will" so I'm guessing he is explaining why he used that paper, maybe only paper he had available? Anyway, this is one of the more unreadable letters I have, the majority are legible for the most part.

I have not seen that form but I'm not familiar with all the forms. I'm sure it was a form that was out of use and so it was deemed scrap paper. So he used it to write letters.

I have seen something like this in Mississippi Archives. Someone used a large formate form to paste newspaper clippings to. You could see the form behind the clippings.

Steve
 
I wanted to update this thread to see if I could get some help. My grandmother gave me a lot of family documents that was given to her by her sister with pictures and documents on the Scudder family. She had a picture of John Scudder's wife (originally Helen Van Trees) and her sister Lida Van Trees. She also had a picture of a man in Union uniform but there is no name and she was not 100% sure who it was. My guess is that it could be John Scudder, but I wanted to see if some of you could look at the uniform and see if it is something a surgeon in the Union army would wear. Helen Scudder had two brothers from the Van Trees family that fought for the Union according to my research, so it could be one of them. Just not sure....any help would be appreciated! Either way it is exciting to finally see a picture of some of the family members I've been researching.
Expired Image Removed
Well, said the photo exceeded the quota, so I'll just post a link to it.

http://imageshack.us/f/62/rick2vr.jpg/
 
Yes, I'm Dr. John A. Scudder's Great grandson and in fact have all or most of the letters in published from. In addition, most of the letters were published in the Washington, Indiana newspaper in the late 1800s. Transcriptions for the hand-written originals was a daunting task and is discussed in the preface to the publication I mention above. R. Scudder
 
Interesting. I've came across his name in papers from that area. I had a number of relatives relocate to Washington, Indiana in the years just after the war. Was always curious why they moved there.
 
Yes, I'm Dr. John A. Scudder's Great grandson and in fact have all or most of the letters in published from. In addition, most of the letters were published in the Washington, Indiana newspaper in the late 1800s. Transcriptions for the hand-written originals was a daunting task and is discussed in the preface to the publication I mention above. R. Scudder

I have been paged! Welcome to the forum lasposas. Dr. John Scudder was my 3rd generation great-grandfather. My grandmother gave me copies of many of his letters 4-5 years ago and I transposed the ones that weren't already transposed as best I could. I would love to see copies of them all transposed if you have them available. You may have more of them than I do.
 
Continuing this from my first post on the new members section.

My grandmother on my mother's side told me that I had a relative (great-great-great grandfather) that served during the Civil War and passed along copies of original letters and transcribed letters that he had written during his time of service. I found them to be extremely interesting and I was able to track down more information on him. His name was John Scudder and he was an assistant surgeon in the 65th Indiana Infantry. So he wasn't a combatant but his letters still spoke of their movements, successes and failures.

I have probably around 12-13 letters that he wrote to his wife between 1863 and 1864. Nine of the letters are copies of the original that look like they were copied with a copy machine. Four of the letters are typed up and transcribed from the originals. I have read over the originals and thought about typing them up but admit I can't make out some of the words.

Here is one that is typed up dated Nov 1st 1863 from Henderson Station, 4 miles east of Greenville, Tenn. I scanned it to PDF and uploaded it here:

http://pdfcast.org/pdf/ja-scudder-11-1-1863

I thought it was neat that he called Grant by his nickname "Unconditional Surrender Grant" also mentioning Rosecrans and Burnside and their offensive against Bragg.

The second letter is a copy of the original that is not transcribed. I can't make out everything on the first page but I thought the second page was very interesting. The link is here:

https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&...k2OWYtZDM2NzFhZmMwNjdh&hl=en&authkey=CLC1t44B

Forgive my ignorance but is the paper he typing on some sort of paper used to document the amount of troops, officers etc? I noticed at the bottom he wrote "for paper and you will" so I'm guessing he is explaining why he used that paper, maybe only paper he had available? Anyway, this is one of the more unreadable letters I have, the majority are legible for the most part.
 
I am the great grandson of Dr. John A. Scudder, Surgeon 65th Regiment Indiana Volunteers. His civil war letters home have in fact been typed, digitized as 'Civil War Letters of Dr. John A. Scudder' and informally published by my sister Jane Scudder Turnley. I'd be happy to send a copy of the letters to you along with the history of their preparation from the original. Robert H. Scudder, [email protected]
 
Easy. John A. Scudder arrived in Daviess County Indiana in 1819 having previously served in the New Jersey Militia during the Revolution then the U. S. Congress. John A. Scudder was the grandfather of the Dr. John A. Scudder who served as Surgeon 65th Regiment Indiana Volunteers during the Civil War. Washington, Indiana has a long legacy in Washington most of which I'm familiar, being probably the last one to leave in the early 70s. Bob Scudder
 
I am the great grandson of Dr. John A. Scudder, Surgeon 65th Regiment Indiana Volunteers. His civil war letters home have in fact been typed, digitized as 'Civil War Letters of Dr. John A. Scudder' and informally published by my sister Jane Scudder Turnley. I'd be happy to send a copy of the letters to you along with the history of their preparation from the original. Robert H. Scudder, [email protected]
Hi @lasposas Welcome to CivilWarTalk! I tried to access the images of the letters you are having trouble reading but was unable. I am going to send you an email. If you would send me the copies, I am pretty good at deciphering period handwriting and would be happy to help you in transcribing them. I am pretty interested in the letters as my 2x ggrandfather was also a surgeon - just for the "other" side. :smile:
 
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