Fire from the Rear: A Soldiers Squabble in the 74th Ohio

By the spring of 1863, the impact of the Emancipation Proclamation in changing Union war aims proved a stark dividing line among Northerners. Peace Democrats, increasingly displeased with the heavy losses on the battlefield, grew particularly vocal in opposition to the war. Those sentiments even drove a wedge between comrades in arms as is shown by the following correspondence.

          Arthur Truman served as a private for about a year in Co. B of the 74th Ohio Volunteer Infantry before he received a discharge on a surgeon’s certificate of disability in December 1862. He returned home to Spring Valley, Ohio and soon put his anti-war sentiments on paper in a letter written to a comrade in Co. B, William Zellers. Truman’s letter, expressing his opposition to emancipation and to blacks in general, raised quite a ruckus amongst his comrades in arms, two of whom wrote letters back to Truman sharing their astonishment.

          The whole batch of correspondence originally saw publication in the Xenia Torchlight but is reproduced here from the pages of the West Jersey Pioneer published in Bridgeton, New Jersey.

 

Peace Democrats, labeled Copperheads by their Republican opponents, took to snipping the head of Liberty from copper pennies and wearing them on their lapels. In the early months of 1863 with war weariness at it height and Union success on the battlefield scarce, Copperhead sentiment grew, particularly in Ohio and spread throughout the Midwest. 

Arthur Truman to Private William Zellers

Spring Valley, Ohio

March 10, 1863

Old soldier, sir,

          I feel it my duty to write to you once in a while for you and I were sworn into this damned nigger war together. But I am glad I am out of it and I would be glad if you were too for I am certain you did not think of that when you volunteered. I did not. But it has come to that now.

          They have passed the conscription bill in Congress and I am afraid if they don’t make Massachusetts and New York and the other delinquent states full their quota, there will be trouble for Ohio will not suffer a draft if Old Abe don’t make those states fill their old quota, neither will Indiana or Illinois. I would not be much surprised if you were to get to visit Ohio before long for the Democrats will not suffer to be run over much longer for these Republicans have been trying to raise a fuss for a long time and I am afraid they will get it.

          A few days ago, they tore up the Crisis office at Columbus, Ohio, a prominent Democratic paper; they also tore up a press at Lebanon, Ohio and one in Illinois. The Democrats held an indignation meeting at Columbus on last Saturday but the proceedings of if are not known here yet. They threaten the [Cincinnati] Enquirer but let them touch it if they want trouble. The conscript bill makes no exception with regard to color. I for one am not in favor of having the nigger mixed in this war for I never want to be an equality with the nigger, but if he fights for the government, he will have a right to vote and hold office in the government. More than that, if they make them fight on the field, they will be buried together with white ones and they are the damndest cowards on earth as they have not sense to fight.

          The conscript bill also lets a man off by paying $300, so you see money is all they are after- a poor man who can’t raise $300 has to go. I think hell is too good a place for Old Abe and his crew. We had the majority in this state last fall, which we never had before. I would like for Old Abe to call an extra Congress next summer then I think something would be done for the Congress is Democratic now; the Abolition Congress is through.

          I must quit for it is a good sugar day. [Truman is referencing harvesting maple sap to make maple syrup] I have been working for my brother-in-law for a while. Bill, you ought to be here now for a man can get anything he asks most for hands are so scarce. Write soon and give all the news. I don’t know whether you can read this or not as I wrote it in a hurry.

From your affectionate friend,

Arthur Truman

P.S. Give the wooly heads all you have got in your shop. Excuse my mistakes for I am in a hurry.

Arthur Truman remained a Democrat throughout his life. He lived around Spring Valley, Ohio until 1869 when he moved west to Montana Territory where he served a term in the state legislature and was an active member of the Grand Army of the Republic. 

As remembered by Second Lieutenant John Scott of Co. B, Truman’s letter angered his former comrades. “His former friends and mess mates are justly indignant that he should send such a letter to any member of the company,” Scott noted. He asked the editor to publish Truman’s letter along with the responses from both William Zellers and another comrade, Moses Bone.

Response of Private William Zellers to Arthur Truman

Camp of 74th Regt., O.V., Murfreesboro, Tennessee

March 19, 1863

Mr. A. Truman,

          With wonder and astonishment, I received your letter today. As we were warm friends once, so I hoped to always remain, but if you are in earnest in your sentiments against your President and your government and you cannot send me a more encouraging letter for the scared cause in which I am willing to sacrifice life and labor, you may throw aside our former friendship and we will know each other hereafter as strangers.

          When I volunteered, it was with the belief that I was going to fight in a just cause and so I believe yet and I am sorry to think that you have taken sides with the traitors in our rear. When you speak of Democrats, I suppose you mean Vallandigham Democrats. Well, I don’t call them such. We would not own them in the Democratic Party. You say you would not be surprised if we had to fight on our own soil. Would to God that tomorrow morning was the day we would march into Ohio! For we would as soon fight Rebels at the North as the Rebels in the South. We have more respect for the open enemy in our front than we have for a sneaking traitor in our rear.

          You say you would be glad if I was out of the service. Well, I am glad I am where I am. So should every loyal man who would rather see the institution of slavery go down than to see the Constitution of the United States go down. In speaking of Democrats, I would say to you that the majority of our company are Democrats. I am a Democrat myself and I am one of the old Jackson Democrats, he who said “The Union, it must and shall be preserved!” How could I approve of your sentiments when you uphold the Rebels who have already fought us with lead and steel and have shot down by comrades in arms? God forbid that I should ever turn a traitor thus!

          I must conclude by telling you that if you are the man you style yourself in your letter, you may consider our correspondence at an end.

Your once devoted friend,

William Zellers

Sergeant John W. Baldwin, Co. C, 74th Ohio Volunteer Infantry 

Response of Private Moses Bone to Arthur Truman

Mr. A. Truman,

          I am allowed the privilege of addressing you a few lines in this letter. I was granted the privilege of reading the letter that you sent to William Zellers and sir, I was sadly astonished to think that you had been led off by a set of damned cowardly, low-lived, onery set of Copperheads who disguise themselves in the names of Democrats when at the time there is not a drop of Old Hickory blood in them and well they know it, too.

          I thought when you left here that you had more manly principles than that! Read the history of our common country and you won’t find a word that will uphold your principles. I will tell you my friend that this company is Democratic and when they heard your sentiments, it made them curse. If the old 74th Ohio was allowed to visit the Copperhead country, they would hang them high as Haman. If you wish me to stand up my statements, let me know.

Moses Bone

 

Source:

“A Rich Correspondence, i.e. What the Democrats in the Army think of the Traitors in their Rear,” West Jersey Pioneer (New Jersey), June 6, 1863, pg. 1


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