One almost hopes that the letters from Aaron and
Alfred, all three addressed to their sister Savilla living on the home farm near Swanders,
will speak from another age about the great issues then tearing the nation apart. We look
for the emotional impact of the grand events on the common soldier. What were their
impressions of the political and military leaders? What about the brave expressions one
expects from soldiers facing death for a great cause? Their words, now barely legible,
describe instead the soldier’s daily routine and give voice to very common requests,
indeed almost desperate demands, for food
and clothing from home. In short, they are letters very much akin to those we might
write to family or friends today, disdaining the eloquent for the practical, leaving
politics to the politicians, military matters to the colonels and generals.
Indeed, Aaron wrote the very day of the pomp and ceremony of a regimental dress parade
honoring a 99th officer. A communiqué from Head Quarters, 99th Reg’t O.V.I.,
Murrfreesboro, Tenn., dated May 5th, 1863, states: "After dress parade of this
Regiment on Friday last, the enlisted men and officers presented to Maj. Ben. LeFever a
beautiful sword and belt, as a token of their confidence and esteem" (Sidney
Journal, March 15, 1863).
Aaron’s esteem was apparently short-fused since he failed to mention the big event
to sister Savilla. "LeFever" was Maj. Benjamin LeFevre, later considered a
general in Shelby County, a representative to the Ohio General Assembly, representative of
Ohio’s 4th district to the U.S. Congress, and U.S. Consul to Nuremberg, Germany. But,
Aaron said... "I have nothing else to do to day so I thought that I would Send you
a letter and let you no how we ar geting along." His letter focused on the food,
picket duties, silk handkerchiefs, and the regiment’s health.
The one departure from the mundane is Aaron’s poignant closing lines to Savilla. "Dear
Sister I would like to see you all and I would like to go home and stay there but why am I
speaking so Simple for I know that is impossible at this preasant time but I think that in
a few more months we all will be permitted to return to our home and then have our once
happy union restored." Aaron could not have been more wrong, for events leading
to his death and his brother’s were gaining momentum. The "once happy
union" would not be restored "in a few more months," but would stretch on
almost another two years after Aaron’s May 1, 1863, letter and about one year after
he was mortally wounded on the deadly slopes of Georgia’s Kenesaw Mountain.