These three letters were written by William Kennedy who, at age 18, enlisted in Co. G, 3rd Missouri (Union) Cavalry to serve three years. William’s enlistment record states that he stood 5 feet 6 inches tall, had blue eyes, brown hair, was a farmer by occupation, and that he was born in Chittenden County, Vermont. Just prior to his enlistment, he was residing in Scales Mound, Jo Daviess county, Illinois.
From William’s enlistment record and from the first letter we learn that he was on duty as a nurse at the temporary small pox hospital set up at the fairgrounds outside of Palmyra, Missouri, during the last two weeks of December 1861. His record also states that he was absent from the regiment in January and February 1863 detailed to Benton’s Barracks in St. Louis as Provost Guard. And finally he was sick at Brownsville, Arkansas, starting on 12 September 1863. I should mention that he was sometimes identified as “William Kenardy” on the muster rolls.
These letters were addressed to his relative, Thomas Elliott (1839-1889), a farmer in Jo Daviess county, who married Dorothy Elizabeth Grindey (b. 1844) in April 1862. Both Thomas and Dorothy were natives of England.
TRANSCRIPTION LETTER ONE
Palmyra [Missouri]
January 16, 1862
Mr. Thomas Elliott,
It is with pleasure that I now sit down to write you a few lines to let you know that I am in good health at present [and] hoping when these few lines comes to hand, may find you enjoying the same blessing. I am going to write you all the news. We are now at Palmyra, Mo. It is a nice place. The town is well settled with secesh and the country is well settled with them so you see we are amongst them. The boys has started out on picket guard. They have to stand out all night. I guess I will go out scouting in a day or two if I can. Our orderly is going to get up a company to go out scouting as far as they go 40 miles out from camp.
We had a good time on Christmas day. We had some roast park and nice rice pudding and some nice biscuit and butter and also some Tom and Gerry. The next day we had two chickens so we enjoyed ourselves tolerable well and at night a young man came over—his name is Benjamin Gamby. He is a good-hearted man as ever lived. So they went out in town and got a jug of whiskey and come over and they had a merry old time. There was a good fiddler to sing and dance until twelve o’clock.
I am tending on the sick about a half mile from camp in the fairground in a nice little house. We have got a good cook stove and a good warming stove. There are two rooms in the house. The weather is fine now at present. The snow is on the ground. It is melting off at present. I have written Dorothy Moore a letter and sent off last Friday. It has got all the present news.
I received a letter from Miss C. Willard when I was coming on the boat from St. Louis. I have written a letter to Dorothy Grindey. I sent it off. I hope you enjoyed yourself well Christmas day and night. I send my best respects to your girl you love the best.
These few lines I got in Dorothy Moore’s letter. She said in her letter that Dorothy Grindey is working out near Shullsurg at White Thorn with Mr. March. She gets one dollar a month—pretty good wages for the delicate little thing, ain’t it. There is a lot more but I think these few lines will make your blood boil. I want you to write if that is so. I think too much of her myself to hear [such] news. I have written letters to you and have got no answer yet. I do not expect an answer from this because the secesh are tearing [up] the railway. I heard up there was a bridge burned down four miles from here. They could not find any track of anyone. There was ten or fifteen went out next morning. They got 4 prisoners. The went to a house and got their dinner and then took the old man and son prisoners and fetched them to the City of Palmyra and put them in the guard house and one of them took the oath of allegiance and went home. There is some prisoners in the guard house now that won’t take the oath and says that they won’t. I guess they will go down to it living for the rest of their time in prison. May have to carry a chain and ball for three years. None of the men they brung in was in Price’s army this summer and a lot of men that tore the railroad track up. I guess they will be shot in a short time.
Thomas, if I was with you now, we would have good times together. We have had some good times together in the old house. Talk things over to ourselves. Them words you told me, I shall never forget them and they never shall go out of my head. I guess you think I never shall forget you until death for you have treated me too well. I think as much of you as I do of any of my brothers. You can ask Dorothy Grindey is she got my letters or not. And if she did, you let me know. I wrote to James Filops [Phillips] when I was in Camp Sturges and have got no answer yet I would like if you would see James if he got it or not. In your letter there was an alarm rose in camp that there was the small pox in camp. I was called out to wait on them so I went up town and got some nails and barrier. Another man went with me to the fairground and we put up a stove and beds. When we got them up, they came with the sick [and] they went to bed. One of them had a bad cold and [was] hoarse so he could not took. Their small pox turned to the measles. It came out thick as hops. I told them that they did not have it. Believe me. So after awhile they did oblige me so there is a lot of our men sick in the hospital. I guess there is a lot of our men that was not examined close enough. When I was examined, they made me open my shirt. There was seven of us examined together.
Now I will give you a sketch about a scouting party that I was in. I have just come in last night from three days hard travel. We started on New Year’s Day. We left the city about three o’clock in the afternoon and went twenty-five miles that afternoon, stayed there until two o’clock in the morning, then got orders to saddle up and then fell in ranks and started off and rode until eight o’clock. [We] stopped to a house and fed our horses and then went to the house and took three prisoners there. The captain gave us orders to kill three sheep and we got them and killed them. We just got them cooked and was agoing to eat them when we seen the rebels and then we got orders to mount and follow them. So 40 of us took down through a cornfield after them but when we come to the woods, we lost them. So we dismounted and scattered and 14 of our men came on to them. They formed a line of battle on a hill and then there was 2 or 3 rounds fired on each side. But our 14 men run them and took 1 prisoner & 4 guns & 3 horses. Then the rest of our men came up and we run them all day on the gallop but their horses were fresher than ours so we gave it up. But our advance guard was pretty close on them. They were so close that one of our men shot one of their rear guard so we all got a glass of whiskey at the little town where [we] stopped and then we went back 2 miles and stayed all night and then the next night we got home. They are nothing but a cowardly set. 14 of our men could not run 100 of them but without joking, they did. We had 5 prisoners & 8 horses home with us & we lost 2 horses.
The way that we do when we go out on a scout is to go up to a secesh house, feed our horses, and make them cook us something to eat and then tell them to charge it to Uncle Sam, but when we were out, all that we had was 3 meals in 3 days. I wish that you would write as quick as you receive this. When you write, direct your letter to Palmyra, Marion county, Mo. in care of Capt. Wright for W. Kennedy. No more at present but remain your friend until death. — W. Kennedy
My eyes is so weak that I had to get Patrick Conarty to finish this. Mr. T. Elliott, I send you and your true love my best respects. Also Mr. Phillips & his true love.
P. Henry Conerty
TRANSCRIPTION LETTER TWO
Camp Boyd
Rolla [Missouri]
September 4th 1862
My friend and companion Thomas Elliott,
It is with the greatest of gratitude that I once more take the pleasant opportunity of addressing you with a few more lines hoping when this comes to you and Dorothy that it may find you both enjoying good health as this leaves me in at present. Thank God for his kind mercy to us all. I received your kind and welcome letter on the 30th last month. I was glad to hear from you again. You must excuse me for this time. I would have written to you sooner only that I had not time to write you or anyone else. Dear Thomas, I thought that you had forgotten me entirely but as quick as I received your letter, the tears run from my eyes to think that you thought so much of me. I hope the time will come when we will meet again and then we can talk all the things over to ourselves. But now we are far from each other now [and] I do not know if we will ever see each other anymore or not.
Dear Thomas, I want you to take my advise for once. I know you are older than I am, but what so ever, you take my advise for once. I want you to stay at home as long as you will be let which if they will go to draft, you go then. That will be soon enough for you to go. You must not listen to the recruiting officers for they will lie to you for the sake of getting you in the service and as quick as you are in, they will turn their backs toward you and say there is a damn fool that we got in by telling him that he will get so much and they never was in the service a day. They can go around and say that it is as easy as working in the field. Thomas, you do not know what a soldier’s life is until you go through it yourself and then you will know what it is. It is one of the hardest lifes that is for you are exposed to all kinds of weather and all hardships—that is, standing guard all night and go and saddle your horse and jump on back of him and ride all day, maybe not stop long enough to get a drink of water and then stop long to cram a few bites of hard bread down your throat and then go on until morning. And there is no mercy for you atall. Maybe the first thing that you hear is, “Go on guard, you damn pup. You are not fit for nothing else—only that.” I have seen the time that I would give the best five dollars that I ever seen for a warm cup of coffee and a biscuit or two. I am very sorry to hear that so many of my old comrades is going to fight for their beloved country—what their forefathers fought for at the time of the Revolutionary War. We aren’t no better to fight for it now than they was. They are going to protect their beloved stars and stripes that I think will float over every state in the United States of America before one year and six months. I think it will not be any sooner.
Thomas, I have one more thing to say to you—that is, keep you mind to yourself and stay at home with your beloved wife and if you go away from her, you will surely set her crazy. She is the only one that will see to you now for if you get sick, she will tend to you like your wife ought to. When you leave your native home. you will never see such a home again.
Now Thomas, J. Moore has left his Mother and Father and sisters to weep over him. Oh, he don’t know what a father or mother is or what a kind blessing it is to have a father and mother to tend to him when he is sick. Now he won’t have them to tend to him and he will learn a lesson that he never will forget. It will be a lesson of hardness and hardships when he will get sick. The way he will be doctored now is the doctor will come around once a day and ask him how he felt and when he tells him he will tell the steward to give him fifteen grains of quinine—enough to kill a horse.
Dear Thomas, I don’t want to hurt your feelings one bit towards me for you will think of too much. I want you to read this letter to T. J. Moore and if it won’t soften his heart, let him go. And also to Mark Grindey. It is so and if you go, you will believe me for once. Thomas, I guess you think that I am a drunkard and a loafer to the army now. I will pledge my word and sacred honor to you and Almighty God, our Heavenly Father, who gives all things, that I [never] touched a drop of whiskey these last five months and hope I never will.
TRANSCRIPTION LETTER THREE
Camp Boyd
Rolla [Missouri]
September 19th 1862
My Friend and Companion Thomas,
I received your kind and welcome letter tonight. It gives me much pleasure to hear from you and Dorothy. Hoping when this comes to you and Dorothy that it may find you enjoying good health as this leaves me in at present. I have just wrote a letter to Dorothy Moore. There is one thing in your letter that I did not like to hear. That is about Father and Mother. O Thomas, if you only knew how it makes my heart beat to think that my poor old Father is turning out as he is. I thought that he was going to live peaceable through his old days but instead of living peaceful, the Devil is getting in him worse every day. Instead of me hearing of him living nice and peaceable, he is living like a dog.
Thomas, I am glad to hear that you have not gone to the war yet. You are thrashing out some grain. It cheers me up to hear that General McClellan is doing so well. He is whipping Stonewall Jackson all to pieces. He is giving him fits on all sides. I guess he will drive them into Richmond before he gives up to them. You have mentioned in your letter that my old camping ground is taken by the rebels. Yet, it is taken. All the prisoners that I helped to guard is taken out and let loose. I guess that the Office of the Day is got Southern principles. I think that he had bribed the pickets so that they would let them in. They had them surrounded before our men knew anything about it so they had to give up to them. I would like to go back there if I could show them that the Old Third Missouri was back there. I guess that they would not keep Palmyra long. If they would, they would have to do some hard fighting—some better fighting than they ever have done.
I just bid the Proctor’s boys goodbye the day before yesterday. They are on their way to Springfield. I hope they will get through this great rebellion and go home. I would not give my place for theirs if I was getting two dollars a month more than I am.
Thomas, you must excuse me for not writing a longer letter to you. I am troubled too much now to write anything at all. I send my love to you and Dorothy and to Mark Grindey and all the family. I will bring my letter to a close now. I still remain your affectionate friend until death, — William Kennedy
Spared & Shared 19 