Letters from family archives: 1) Lt E.F Nixon & Camp Fisk 2) William Hayes & Camp Crittendon

EliseBr

Cadet
Joined
Jan 1, 2021
Greetings,
Full disclosure: I am not a Civil War buff and know very little of the history. However, I found a couple of letters in our family archives that I thought might be of interest to someone who is. I am also curious about them and what they might mean. I am especially curious about the Camp Fisk letter professing the innocence of Lt Nixon against charges of cowardice. Unfortunately, since the letter is unsigned, I'm not sure which relative of mine penned it. The Camp Crittendon letter was written by my relative, William Hayes.

Please let me know if these are of interest to you and thank you for any information you provide!

Thanks,
Elise Brown
Liberty, ME
 

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  • Civil War Letter W Hayes Camp Crittendon.pdf
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  • Civil War Letter Lt Nixon Camp Fisk.pdf
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I'm glad you started a new thread so more people can see these great letters! Just to repeat what was in the former thread -

Lt. Edwin (Edward in the records) Francis Nixon was indeed dismissed for cowardice after surrendering to Nathan Bedford Forrest during an engagement between the 7th Pennsylvania Cavalry and Forrest's troops near Columbia, Tennessee. Nixon was 2nd Lt in Company E -also in that company served William Hayes (mustered in as a 2nd corporal, promoted to 1st Lt before mustering out). That would fit the letter writer well.

I'm no handwriting expert but I kind of assumed the letters were written by the same man. Do you know of other family members who served in the 7th PA Cavalry?

Nixon's FindaGrave listing has a fair amount of information on Nixon -

 
Yes, glad you posted these here. I know there are many folks who collect documents like these. I would rather see these kinds of sources end up in a publicly-accessible collection, so they can be used by researchers -- an archive, library, museum, historical society, etc.

Roy B.
 
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