Letters Home  "Cure For Homesickness"

Most Civil War soldiers were not widely traveled before they joined the army. Leaving their families behind, they entered a strange new life far from home and loved ones. Homesickness was a common ailment for blue and gray soldiers throughout the war, and the only direct contact with home available to most men was through letter writing. Because of the limited educational standards of the time, letters usually contained crude handwriting and phonetic spelling. Most letters were written with pencil because pen and ink were seldom available. "A lead pencil is a poor thing to write with", wrote an Illinois private, "but you must try and figer it out". An Illinois drummer boy wrote his sister: "I rote you a letter the other day in answer to the one that Ulysses coppyed for you, but last Sunday evening I received an other from you in your own hand wrighting whitch was the best of all. I could read evry word except one. If you will keep trying you will soon get so as you wright first rate. You must learn to spell, to."

The Civil War caused the largest outpouring of letter writing in American history. Each day, 90,000 letters passed through Washington, with twice that number going through Louisville, KY, for the armies in the West. The newly formed Confederate postal service appropriated existing federal routes and offices and utilized many of the same postmasters. The first Confederate postage stamps were even printed in the North. As the Confederate economy and the value of Confederate money plummeted, postage stamps became a more stable medium of exchange and were freely used as currency.

Service was uncertain in the North as well as in the South, but grew especially bad in the South near the end of the war. Stationery also became scarce in the South, and soldiers wrote letters on almost any type of paper, but they preferred proper writing paper. Many varieties of stationery were marketed to the Union and Confederate soldiers; most were decorated with eagles, flags, or other patriotic symbols.

Fascinating Fact:  Confederate stamps had portraits of only three people: President Jefferson Davis, Gen. Stonewall Jackson, and Sen. John C. Calhoun.


Back to index page