Beschreibung:

59 war-date letters (including 23 soldier's letters); 6 pre- and post-war letters; journal, 1874; 6 post-war account books; plus 130+ photographs, mostly unidentified subjects, including 16 photographs of Boone. Ca 1850-1874. The 115th Ohio performed much of the dirty work necessary in the western theatre during the Civil War. Raised primarily in Columbiana County and mustering into the federal service at Camp Massillon in August 1862, the regiment was temporarily split early up in its service, with roughly half, under the command of then-Lt. Col. Thomas Boone, assigned to guard duty at Camp Chase Prison and the other half to duty at Cincinnati. Overseeing both political and military prisoners at a time of profound instability in the state, Boone was at the epicenter of a vicious legal battle, caught between the state's Copperhead civil authorities who had issued a writ of habeas corpus for the outspoken Peace Democrat Clement Vallandingham and his own commanding general Ambrose Burnside, who had ordered that all habeas corpus orders from state be ignored. As a military man, Boone followed his commander's orders, even after a judge ordered his arrest: only the body guard he had gathered around him prevented the arrest from being carried out. From the late summer 1863 through the end of the war, Boone and his regiment were assigned to suppress guerrilla activity in Kentucky and Tennessee and to ward off the periodic raids from Confederate forces. In July 1863, he pursued John Morgan during the raid into Ohio, and he saw a series of sharp engagements at Lavergne, TN, on Aug. 31, 1864, and during Hood's campaign near Nashville in Dec. 1864. On Dec. 4 that year, he commanded a detachment of the 115th, supplemented with "Colored" troops from the 14th and 44th USCT, which was assigned to defend a series of stockades and block houses. He fought fiercely until forced to retreat in good order to Nashville: I knew that should the place be surrendered or taken by assault a butchery would follow... Boone was cited for taking command of the 3rd Michigan at Murfreesboro on Dec 7, 1864, and inflicting heavy losses on Confederate Gen. Abe Buford. He remained in Tennessee until the end of the war, discharged at Cleveland on July 7, 1865. Thereafter, the 115th fared less well: three companies of the regiment were captured during Hood's advance on Nashville and when they were finally freed at war's end, were transported north aboard the ill-fated steamer Sultana. Eighty-three of Boone's men lost their lives that day. Although Boone's letters contain almost no significant battle content (apart from a few mentions of Nathan Bedford Forrest and other guerrilla activity) and nothing relating to either his experience as a political hot potato in Ohio or the Sultana, they are nevertheless sterling examples of Civil War correspondence. These lovely, warm letters to his wife Mary (apparently a convinced Quaker) and daughter Sarah at home in Salem, OH, are filled with unusual details revealing the intimacy uniting a family separated by war: sending home two pairs of mocking birds (do not expect they will sing much before spring, in your cold climate), visiting wounded men in the hospital, and politics are all mixed with discussions of his military experiences in Tennessee. Among the highlights of the collection are several important letters in which Boone discusses race and slavery in occupied Tennessee. From Murfreesboro, Jan 31, 1864, he wrote: I expect to take Pete with me to Gallatin & the whole rounds – says he likes the yankeys better that [sic] the Rebs. His father called to see me, wants me to take Pete's sister and send home – have not seen her. She is about 15 years old & the old man says she is a christian. Tell Alma there is a large opening here to teach the 'degraded race,' but how she could get at it or who to apply to cannot at present inform her. There are some northern ladies in Murfreesboro teaching the colored girls & boys, but suppose