When the Confederate flag was removed earlier this summer from atop the Capitol building in Columbia, S.C., for the first time since 1962 — an action that did little to mollify the NAACP — it was done grudgingly by state legislators in a close vote.
When the flag originally came down from the South Carolina statehouse in 1865 in the Civil War’s final months, everyone wasn’t so restrained. That was when Col. George Stone, leading a brigade of Union soldiers from Iowa, was the first to enter this hotbed of the Confederacy following a nasty, bloody siege. At one point, Stone assigned a platoon of soldiers to shoot Columbia’s mayor and aldermen — who had approached with a white flag — if isolated resistance continued.
Union troops then advanced directly to the building and planted the U.S. flag atop the Capitol of “a state that has been disloyal since the days of John C. Calhoun, and the contemplated capital of the Confederacy,” wrote Stone in a report. This was followed by fires destroying much of the city.
Not far from the colonel throughout that day was Capt. Jacob Ritner, a 36-year-old schoolteacher from Mt. Pleasant, Iowa, who, by that time, was a seasoned soldier with scars to prove it. In regular letters to his wife, Emeline, the captain reported what he saw in Columbia as well as during other battles he fought.
Letters were the only means to convey to the home front what was experienced in the Civil War and, at the same time, preserve a record for future generations. Ritner’s eye toward history wasn’t different, or necessarily better than was displayed by thousands of other soldiers in the war, a conflict that seemingly had as many letter writers and journal keepers as it did sharpshooters. But his correspondence has taken root far beyond the family tree.
Charles Larimer, a great-great grandson who lives in suburban Western Springs, has self-published the letters in a new book, “Love and Valor,” that is receiving early acclaim and is about to go into a second printing in only a few months of availability in stores and on the Internet. “I wouldn’t say I went over the edge on this,” he said, “but I did get hooked on everything in a big, big way.”
Larimer spent seven years on the project, filling in a written, historical context of his own for the book by applying the same meticulous, eye-blurring methods to research that he uses in his day job as an actuary poring over charts, graphs and numbers.
Larimer spent countless hours looking at documents in courthouses and museums, plowed through hundreds of back issues of small newspapers, interviewed distant relatives he’d never met, and traveled to battlefields and cemeteries to gain a better feel for sights Ritner discussed. And, during his extensive search, Larimer is convinced a brush with Emeline’s “ghost” provided the final coup.
In the captain’s descriptive, stylish writing, Larimer had a rich lode of material from the Civil War’s western front, but this was only half the story because “Love and Valor” also contains the articulate letters Emeline wrote back to Jacob. “Apparently he kept them all and periodically would send them back in a package to be saved,” said Larimer.
Ritner had answered President Lincoln’s first call for volunteers in 1861 and, before being mustered from the military, he saw action in Vicksburg, Miss.; Chattanooga, Tenn. (where he was wounded in the hand); Atlanta and Gen. William Sherman’s March to the Sea; the Carolina campaign; and, finally, the Grand Review victory parade in Washington, D.C., in which he marched. In Virginia at war’s end, Ritner even became a tourist and visited sites such as Libby Prison, the Confederate House of Congress, and the homes of Robert E. Lee and Jefferson Davis.
Emeline, who had little experience in agricultural matters, meanwhile worked their Iowa farm, which included both livestock and crops. There were four young children at the time — a fifth died before the war and two more would be born after Jacob returned — in the house while her husband was in uniform.
There have been an estimated 60,000 books on the Civil War, many of which are based on letters and journals, but those in the trade note having both sides of the correspondence is relatively rare and makes “Love and Valor” somewhat unique.
Jacob described the pitiful state of the prisoners of war; passed along a personal comment he got from Gen. U.S. Grant; made observations on the recruiting of Union soldiers to become officers of “colored” troops; and shared insults he traded at night with Confederate soldiers.
Emeline wrote of having a new outdoor toilet installed; daughter Nellie’s broken arm; son Tommie’s case of the mumps; pigs eating the chickens; and, in something many readers may relate to, growing tension with her in-laws — all of which she coped with on a monthly budget of $25.
In one letter, Emeline told of being upbraided by an older woman at church for wearing a hat considered “inappropriate” for someone with a husband in the war. “Everybody that gets a new hat has to take a thrashing from her and so my time came today,” she wrote.
In another especially poignant exchange, Jacob, whose unenviable job it was to notify survivors of those killed in his company, asked Emeline to personally inform her own sister, Caroline, of the death of her husband, James Freeman, at Vicksburg. After doing so, Emeline wrote: ” . . . she commenced screaming, and it seemed as if she would go into a fit. She looked so pitiful . . . I brought her home with me. She couldn’t stay here by herself till she would get over it some.”
“It’s very cool, not to mention rare, to have both sets of letters like this,” said Vickie Beck, owner of the Blue and Grey bookstore in Independence, Mo., which has more than 3,000 offerings on the subject. “So much that used to be written about the Civil War years ago was just rehash of the same facts, but there’s always a market for this kind of book because it’s the straight stuff, unedited and with lots of details.
“The fact is,” added Beck, “we always read a lot about the big battles — Gettysburg, whatever — but the Civil War was really a lot of small skirmishes that we don’t know a lot about. This was really true on the western front, where the big newspapers in the East didn’t send writers or photographers. Books like this fill in details.”
Civil War history is, in fact, still being “written,” according to Bill and Nellie Edmonston, who operate a publishing house in Hamilton, N.Y., that specializes in books on the conflict — including the acclaimed “No Middle Ground” journals of Gettysburg artillery officer Thomas Ward Osborn, who became an important Reconstruction figure.
“When Ken Burns’ series was aired a few years back (on PBS-TV), it gave everything a big bump,” said Nellie Edmonston. “The big thing is that there are all sorts of diaries and letters being discovered today in trunks and attics where they’ve been put away for years.”
“Love and Valor,” published earlier this year in both hard and soft cover for Sigourney Press, a name Larimer came up with, has enjoyed modest success.
There were 4,000 copies initially published last April, and “Love and Valor” is about to go into a second printing. The volume has been nominated for a “book-of-the-year” award by the State Historical Society of Iowa, and Gettysburg College has asked Larimer to submit the book for consideration for its prestigious Lincoln Prize, which goes each year to a scholarly work on the war.
“People in those days wrote extremely well,” noted Nellie Edmonston. “They could turn a phrase better than today. In many cases, these were not people who were very well-educated even by standards then. But it was the only way to communicate, and sometimes a person would be chosen to write letters for others who weren’t good at it. You couldn’t just pick up a telephone like today, or e-mail someone. They worked hard to get in details and nice-sounding phrases.”
Large publishing houses, apparently feeling there isn’t enough profit in this kind of book, generally want Civil War authors to be already established as writers or scholars. Larimer got several rejections before deciding to invest his own money — much of which came from a buyout of his actuary firm — in the publication and distribution of the book.
“I had this vision of a bunch of young editors dumping my manuscript in the trash can and saying, `Oh, no. Not another book of Civil War letters,'” he said. “I guess that sort of became my inspiration to plunge ahead.”
In his trips to battle sites, Larimer was able to pinpoint where Ritner spent part of the Vicksburg campaign based on Ritner’s descriptions of the Mississippi River. He visited where fighting took place on Lookout Mountain in Tennessee and, after exploring Atlanta, followed the route taken in Sherman’s march across Georgia. He wasn’t quite prepared for the enmity that still exists in Savannah and other locations that lay in the Union general’s path of destruction.
“I was talking to this kindly little old lady in a poster shop,” said Larimer, “and she was real interested at first in what I was doing. Then, when I told her about Jacob being part of Sherman’s army, you could just see the change in her facial expression. I can’t tell you the number of times a conversation would end with, `But I’m not going to hold it against you.'”
At Ft. Jackson just outside Savannah, Larimer was steered to a direct descendant of a local resident who had hosted Ritner for Christmas dinner in 1864 during occupation of the area by Union troops.
Larimer’s top priority throughout his research was locating original copies of the letters. He had carbons of Jacob’s writing, which had been typed by a great aunt in the 1930s, and he located the actual letters in the State of Iowa Historical Society building in Iowa City, where they had been donated nearly 60 years ago.
He chased more relatives — going to North Dakota at one point — and made inquiries through the Internet for Emeline’s originals (there were no carbons), which were rumored to exist. He was ready to concede defeat until he visited an obscure, tiny cemetery in Danville, Iowa, and his luck changed.
Larimer was looking for the grave of Jacob’s father, but he was startled to find the plot of Jacob and Emeline’s first child, Evangeline, who had died prior to her first birthday in 1853.
“Before then,” he said, “I had never really connected with Emeline the way I had with Jacob because I hadn’t read her letters. I really began to sense her sorrow when I saw that grave, burying a child and everything. The longer I stayed, the stronger the sensation became, and her spirit stayed with me. I was really overcome.”
Three days later, Larimer got an e-mail from a Civil War collector in Utah who had copies of Emeline’s letters. This, in turn, led him to the originals, which — unknown to the rest of the family — were in the possession of his own second cousin, who lives near Reno.
Larimer was then able to utilize the letters in the book, which until then he thought would have to be based only on Jacob’s correspondence.
After the Civil War, Jacob returned to Mt. Pleasant, going to work for the local Home Journal newspaper, and he died eight years later at the age of 45, having never fully recovered from the war’s effects. Emeline died in 1909 at age 79.
Larimer plans eventually to donate Emeline’s letters, which are now in his possession, to the Iowa City museum that has Jacob’s — with the idea that some day they would be jointly displayed. “That would seem appropriate after all they went through,” he said.
A SAMPLER OF JACOB AND EMELINE’S LETTERS
Emeline and Jacob Ritner were miles — and worlds — apart during the Civil War, but their regular letters with daily happenings were a link that clearly kept them close. The letters were filled with details that were equal parts colorful, amusing, anxious, sad and, above all, full of love and longing. Here are some excerpts.
Both on their separation:
“Dear Jake:
“Where are you tonight, and what are you doing? Oh I would so like to know. I have got the blues most horribly tonight and the wind is blowing a perfect streak. Your old canteen is bumping & banging against the wall in the porch, trying to keep time with the howling of the wind, and the dismal patter of the rain. Oh how gloomy everything seems tonight! How I wish you were with us to chase away the melancholys, but where are you tonight and what are you doing . . . “
“My Dear Wife:
“I often lie awake at night looking at the moon and stars and thinking that they are the same moon and stars that shine on you. And then I think that maybe you are sitting in the door at the same time and looking at the same objects, or perhaps the same stars I am looking at are shining through the window into your nice room where you are sleeping in your snug bed, and then I feel very near to you and love you, Oh! So much!”
Emeline on word in Mt. Pleasant, Iowa, that Vicksburg, Miss., had fallen to the Union:
. . . “Some of the old copperheads (Southern sympathizers) got `cheered’ that afternoon that we got the news. About 20 little boys got old cowbells and ran over to old Hill’s and nearly deafened him with the noise. He got mad and shook his fist at them, would have thrashed them if he had tried. From there they went to Goodman’s and Lashes. The men made all three of these rebels put up Stars and Stripes over their buildings. That night we had cannonading and the grandest fireworks I ever saw.”
Emeline on problems at home:
“. . . I have been about half crazy trying to prepare for winter. I haven’t done anything yet scarcely. Haven’t got any apples, or potatoes, or wood, nor haven’t sold the two old cows yet and don’t know when I ever will. Corn is 50 cents per bushel and it won’t pay to feed the white cow, and I don’t think she will do to kill unless she is fattened some. If I can sell her for $15.00 I will take it. It is going to be a great bother to me to get her butchered and sell the beef and hide and everything.”
A problem gets solved for her:
“. . . Old man Arthur is here putting up a `privy’ (outdoor toilet) out of the old lumber that was left of the fence. It will be a rough concern, but better than none.”
Emeline tells of rationing at home:
“I was at a meeting this afternoon at City Hall — A woman’s meeting, for the purpose of pledging our selves not to buy any articles of dress for `three years or during the war.’ They have near a hundred names down. Some talk of laying by all their silks and finery and becoming calico dresses and shakers.”
Jacob describes Sherman’s March to the Sea:
“. . . we had very fine weather and got along first rate. We made a few hard days’ marches, but generally took our time and lived on the fat of the land. We found plenty of forage and provisions. We lived on yams and fresh pork, chickens, honey, molasses, peanuts, etc. We had only one baggage wagon to the regiment. But we brought all the officers’ valises, and a wedge tent for each four officers, and we have slept outdoors only two or three times during the march. We had more accommodations than we ever had before on a march. We marched on several roads. The army was spread over a strip of country from 40 to 60 miles wide, which was completely cleaned out and ruined. We ate all the hogs, and kept and drove off the cattle. We got hundreds of good horses and mules and Negroes, and did an immense amount of mischief generally. We destroyed the railroad and all its branches . . . we did not capture Macon, but the 2d Brigade had a fight with the rebels a few miles east and whipped them badly. We lost 78 in killed and wounded, and the rebels 1,500.”
Jacob on Union troops gathering slaves in North Carolina:
“All our contrabands (about 10,000) are to go to Wilmington with the train. I never felt as much pity for any one as I have for those poor Negroes. They are nearly all bare footed and almost naked. A great many small children. They suffered terribly before they got here, but bore it all without a murmur. I am afraid many of them will be sadly disappointed when they come to realize the liberty they have been so anxious to obtain. I do hope the people of the north will endeavor to supply their wants.”
Jacob on the grand finale:
“My Dear Wife:
“. . . We had our Grand Review last Wednesday. It passed off first-rate and everyone says we beat the (Army of the) Potomac’s marching and in military appearance! . . . I wish you could have been there to see it. But there was such a crowd you could not have had any satisfaction or been able to get any accommodation. I never saw the like for people. We `bivouacked’ in the city south of the Capitol the night before the review, and then marched to our present camp, which is about three miles north of the city in a very nice pine grove.
“You can’t imagine what a relief it is to me to feel that the war is over. We don’t talk about anything else. I feel proud of the part I have taken in putting down this rebellion. And thank God that I have lived to see the end of it. I have followed it and fought it through every rebel state but two . . . and at last I slept in peace with the remnant of my gallant company in the city of Washington under the shadow of the Capitol. On the day of the grand review when I marched down Pennsylvania Avenue at the head of Company B, I felt like I weighed about a ton. You don’t blame me if I do feel a little proud, do you? I can’t help it.”
— Mike Conklin
