New Source of Historical Civil War Information
The Vermont Historical Society’s Leahy Library has procured a very important set of Civil War letters from the region around Fayston, Moretown and Waitsfield. The letters shed insight into the war, its impact on Vermont and on people of the time. “Research material on the Civil War is hugely important for historians, scholars, and the thousands of others who use the Society library each year,” notes the Society’s librarian, Paul Carnahan. “Wilson enlisted in Company B of the 13th Vermont regiment in 1862 and wrote 53 letters home to his mother, sister Lucy, and friend Melville Eaton. Wilson died during the Battle of Gettysburg on Cemetery Ridge, July 3, 1863, just before Pickett charged toward the Union troops.”
According to Vermont Civil War historian Howard Coffin, “The Wilson collection is very important not only for its wealth of information on the nine months of service of the Second Brigade, but because of the light it sheds on East Warren. It is one of the finest Second Brigade collections that I have seen and is a very valuable addition to the VHS archive.”
Wilson’s first letter is sent from the camp at Brattleboro where the 13th Vermont assembled. “We are to be sworn in today and tomorrow. We are to bid adieu to the Green Hills of Vermont Apparently losing weight, in November Wilson tells his family to “look on the sash by the showcase in Jim’s store and see how much I weighed the night I enlisted.” By February he writes to friend Melville at home urging him to avoid the draft and saying that he will not reenlist unless given a horse to ride. for nine months. Then we shall see home again. All I hope.”
In what is apparently his last letter home, Wilson writes that “we have to keep awake on guard as one neglect endangers the whole Brigade. I will write soon as I can to say goodbye.” Back home, his fiancée Delia Porter took the news of his death hard. She died within a few months. Wilson’s body came home to East Warren, and is buried in the cemetery there, all that remains of the village.
For more information on the Wilson letters or other itmes in the VHS Leahy Library, please contact Paul Carnahan at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or 802.479.8508.
