Dominican University puts Civil War letters home online
By Todd Shields Sun-Times Media tshields@pioneerlocal.com June 13, 2011 5:04PM
A letter from Noah Harrison Hart written to his wife in 1862. | Tamara Bell~Sun Times Media
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Updated: August 3, 2011 8:24PM
Trapped in a small home in July 1864, a group of Union soldiers of Michigan’s 10th Regiment took constant fire from Confederate troops perched on a nearby hill.
“And here we lived the day through but our suffering and anxiety were greater during than the whole war. Not a drop of water to quench our parched tongues. Exposed to the rays of a burning sun and every man crouched on his knees or feet, and nothing to eat.”
Those are the words of Capt. Noah Harrison Hart from letters he wrote home.
The letters are preserved 150 years later at Dominican University in River Forest and under the care of archivist Steven Szegedi and the Dominican librarian staff.
In May, the letters became available to the public through the Dominican’s website: http://www.dom.edu/library/collections/hartpapers.
They are the first materials in Dominican’s digitalized collection.
In Dominican’s library, Szegedi showed two boxes containing 143 items from Hart, mostly photos and letters about health issues, supply problems, sleeping conditions, nutrition, soldiers’ pay and hellish wartime violence.
Annia Hart, a 1927 graduate of Rosary College, which is now Dominican University, donated the Hart family collection in 1967 and continued doing so through the 1980s, Szegedi said.
She was married to Stephen Hart, grandson of Noah Harrison Hart.
Hart’s letters are dated from 1862 to 1864, some from a military camp in Michigan, others from battlefields as he traveled into the south during Gen. William Sherman’s 40-day siege of Atlanta. They were written with a fountain pen, quill or hand-carved tool and sent to Hart’s wife, Emily Julia Peck.
“The letters tell of (Hart’s) day-to-day experiences and how he intimately communicates with his family. They’re a direct connection to the history and people who were a part of this institution,” said Szegedi.
Hart described battlefield amputations, the roar of artillery and female spies carrying diagrams of Union fortifications in their stockings.
“The diagrams & drawings were found wrapped around their beautiful legs & their stockings pulled up over them,” Hart wrote. “Wasn’t that cute. Who ever supposed a fellow would think of looking as low as a ladies stocking. But they did.
“The probability is they will go North to remain during the war. I have only given you a few specimens but enough to enable you to take a peek into this vast & complicated institution called war,” Hart wrote.
Hart’s communications were sent every few days; some weeks apart, but they always stating how much he missed Emily and their children.
“At each morning dawn I find myself farther and farther from you,” he wrote on the Mississippi River near Cairo, Ill.
Farther south, he said, “You may not hear from me again until the day is won or lost to us. We are only about 8 miles from the Mississippi boundary line. Our reg is in good spirits and anxious to move on. Kiss the children for me and accept a thousand for yourself. Yours Truly And Affectionately N.H. Hart.”
Hart died in 1891.
Before the Civil War he worked in Michigan as a justice of the peace, a county clerk and a prosecuting attorney before enlisting in 1861.
His “letters were clearly used and needed some care, but they look good. From the 1800s, the papers are fragile,” said Szegedi, also Dominican’s special collections librarian.
“We have to de-acidify the papers to make them less brittle. And it’s better not to wear gloves when handling them because your fingers would not be sensitive enough. With photos, you always wear gloves to avoid leaving fingerprints,” he said.
“Different types of paper have chemical bases to support the ink. This all requires different types of care.”
The public also can view the original collection at Dominican University, 7900 W. Division St., River Forest, in the Rebecca Crown Library.
“My personal experience is that living collections are more usable by the public. There’s a lot of evidence and information you can get from the paper — the look of the ink and water marks,” Szegedi said.
Caroline Sietmann, a librarian at Dominican, said Hart’s letters showed “how shook up he was during Sherman’s famous march to the sea.”
“There’s physical and emotional shock. A reader can see his attitude about war. It’s a very unique perspective on a huge war campaign,” she said.
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