Great thread on the 5th NH. Thanks. I’m new to Civil War history and I found this site via Google for the 5th NH Regiment, which was originally created as a “three year” regiment so many of the (relatively few?) surviving original members returned home in Oct 1864 unless they re-enlisted.
Good news:
A new “primary source” is becoming available for some history involving the 5th NH volunteers: In 2011, the previously unknown 60+ Civil War letters of Lt. George S. Gove (5th NH, Company K) of Raymond, NH were donated to the UNH Special Collections department for preservation and sharing both the originals plus images and transcriptions access via the Internet (soon). George was writing home to his older sister Julia Gove Parsons in Rye, NH.
George S. Gove was one of the original volunteers in that "three year" regiment under Col. Cross, mustering on Oct 12, 1861 as a Private and out on Oct 12, 1864 as 2nd Lt.. These letters were locked up and never known to the public, until now (2011). Gove is mentioned in some of those Civil War books about the 5th NH Regiment, since his field journal was used as one of the sources. Gove's brief journal entries were quoted in "The History of the 5th NH Volunteers" (Dr. Child), "Days and Events" (Thomas Livermore from the same Company “K”), "My Brave Boys" (2001) and a few other books. The journal entries were short, but the letters George wrote to home were very detailed, especially the descriptions of the battles, including Fredericksburg where he was wounded like several other soldiers in-a-row -- after picking up the colors and advancing into heavy fire. He also wrote about politics and camp life. He survived the war and later became a locomotive engineer in Boone, Iowa.
Members of my family donated those 60+ Civil War letters (and other family letters from the 1830s to the 1930s) to UNH... Follow the link below for the summaries of the letters and scroll down to 1861 to see the Gove letters.
http://www.library.unh.edu/special/index.php/parsons-family
The linked images and transcriptions should be online by sometime in early 2012 but I have my own electronic copies of the original raw transcriptions and scannings that my Uncle made before UNH began improving on those. If you read those summaries and have any questions before the transcriptions online, just let me know and I can cut-and-paste a few excerpts.
I got into Civil War history this year only after reading the Gove letters but I’ve since been reading about the NH regiments and general writings on the Civil War. Julia Gove Parsons was my G-G-Grandmother. She and others saved all these letters which were passed down through the family. Each letter was still folded in their stamped envelopes and boxed away. Our families weren’t aware what we really had, here, until the older generation finally read and transcribed them during the past few years... which wasn’t easy. I’m just helping to share this history, including new window on life in the 5th NH Volunteers regiment. I wonder how many other stashes of old Civil War letters are out there waiting to appear some day?