{"id":2002,"date":"2016-01-25T21:09:21","date_gmt":"2016-01-25T21:09:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.uakron.edu\/nojh\/?p=2002"},"modified":"2016-01-25T21:09:21","modified_gmt":"2016-01-25T21:09:21","slug":"book-review-do-they-miss-me-at-home-the-civil-war-letters-of-william-mcknight-seventh-ohio-volunteer-cavalry-edited-by-donald-c-maness-and-h-jason-combs-athens-ohio-ohio-university-press","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.uakron.edu\/nojh\/2016\/01\/25\/book-review-do-they-miss-me-at-home-the-civil-war-letters-of-william-mcknight-seventh-ohio-volunteer-cavalry-edited-by-donald-c-maness-and-h-jason-combs-athens-ohio-ohio-university-press\/","title":{"rendered":"Book Review: Do They Miss Me at Home? The Civil War Letters of William McKnight, Seventh Ohio Volunteer Cavalry. Edited by Donald C. Maness and H. Jason Combs. Athens, Ohio: Ohio University Press, 2010. xv, 271 pp. Hardcover. $ 35.96. ISBN 9780821419144."},"content":{"rendered":"

Donald C. Maness and H. Jason Combs\u2019s edited volume, Do They Miss Me at Home, <\/em>is an absolutely fascinating collection of 108 letters, written mostly from William McKnight to his wife, Samaria, between 1862 and 1864 when he was with the Seventh Ohio Volunteer Cavalry. From the larger perspective of the Civil War drama, McKnight\u2019s life story may be most interesting because John Hunt Morgan and his raiders stayed at his home in Meigs County during their famous ride across Indiana and Ohio in July 1863; and then in June of 1864 McKnight was killed in battle as Ohio\u2019s Seventh Volunteer Cavalry chased Morgan and his men from Cynthiana, Kentucky.\u00a0 But the valuable contribution of this book is the raw and unfiltered glimpse it provides into the emotional life of an ordinary soldier as he silently communicates through letters with his wife.<\/p>\n

The authors organize the letters into five chapters that correspond to McKnight\u2019s sojourn from military camps in Ohio, Kentucky, and Tennessee, where he spent most of the 22 months of the 3-year term he signed up for in September 1862. Maness and Combs note in their introduction that the Union army handled a remarkable 135,000 letters daily, clear evidence of how important written correspondence was to soldiers and their families. (1) The introduction provides a useful overview of the McKnight family, the Ohio Seventh Volunteer Cavalry, and the role of Ohio in the Civil War. Reproductions of letters and photographs, five appendices, and three maps round out the book. \u00a0Exhaustive footnotes make sense of problems with dating and geography and provide insight into topics such as diet and battle histories.\u00a0 The bibliography is not exemplary.\u00a0 The index is thorough.<\/p>\n

William McKnight did not fit the profile of the typical Civil War soldier: single, between the ages of 18 and 24, and native born. \u00a0He was married, the father of six children, 29 years old, and born in Canada in 1832 to parents who had immigrated from Scotland to New Brunswick just two years before.\u00a0 In 1836 his parents moved with their five children to Meigs County in southeastern Ohio.\u00a0 There they had six more children that they raised in Pomeroy and Langsville, small towns near the Ohio River.\u00a0 William became a blacksmith and, at age 25, married Samaria Braley, whose family had moved to the area from Maine in 1816.\u00a0 By the time McKnight joined the Seventh Ohio Volunteer Cavalry in September, 1862, he and Samaria had four children.\u00a0 Twins girls were born in the summer of 1863.<\/p>\n

McKnight volunteered for service out of duty to country. He did not mention the issue of slavery and only used the term Negro on two occasions.\u00a0 (217, fn11) In the first year of correspondence Samaria\u2019s voice is heard only as William responds, for example when he defended his decision to volunteer \u201cagainst your wil.\u201d (55) McKnight answered her: \u201cI hope you might be Proud of me to know that I had honor and spunk enough to go defend our countryies rights.\u201d (56)<\/p>\n

But he was conflicted by the emotional trauma his decision brought Samaria and \u00a0the children: \u201cOh how bad it makes me fell to think of them sweet little children of mine crying for papa and especially that dear little one\u2026 crying for me\u2026. It is for them that I feel the most hurt for no one but God knows who wil take Care of them if their Pa falls a victim to this rebelian\u2026.\u201d (56) Samaria\u2019s letters often brought William to tears.(56, 58)<\/p>\n

McKnight\u2019s age, business skills, and literacy made him a natural officer. Appointed as a first sergeant of Company K in September 1862, he was promoted to second lieutenant in April of 1864.\u00a0 Killed in action two months later, he was never commissioned at this rank. He complained to his wife that promised promotions and pay raises did not come through. In December 1863 he wrote: \u201cMay [My] just Dues from the Government set to the present amounts to over $600.00 dollars & I need it & cant get a cent.\u201d (149) In his second to last letter to Samaria, on June 3, 1864, he wrote that \u201cit is now eleven months past since I recd any pay\u2026.\u201d (185)<\/p>\n

To support himself and his family McKnight traded horses, sold other goods, and borrowed. \u00a0(154) He also hounded Samaria to collect fees owed from his blacksmith business. (129) Samaria collected some of the old bills, much to William\u2019s satisfaction, but she also relied on her own and William\u2019s families.\u00a0 William often suggested chores for family members and neighbors, including cutting firewood and planting corn.<\/p>\n

McKnight comes across as needy and demanding, keeping score on his own and Samaria\u2019s letters: \u201cThere was a mail come through for the Regmt.\u00a0 All the Boys got letters but me.\u00a0 I don’t see why that I am slited.\u00a0 I write every chance I get.\u201d (135)\u00a0 \u201cI have long anxiously awaited a letter from you but in vain\u2026.\u201d (137) \u201cI have not herd from you for a month or more & the only by Bro Johns letter\u2026. Please write to me at least once a week & I wil write as often as I can if it is evry other day.\u201d (157)<\/p>\n

A major theme is news from Meigs County via old newspapers, letters, and gossip from men who have travelled home for a week or two.\u00a0 William asked Samaria to date her letters because they did not always arrive sequentially due to problems with transportation and the Seventh\u2019s movements.(128) William also has news for Samaria about what has happened to men from his area, whether it is desertion or injury or death or encounters with the Confederates. (72)<\/p>\n

William wants the correspondence to be conversational.\u00a0 In February 1863 he began a letter: \u201cOh Samaria. Samaria.\u00a0 Do you hear me if you do I want you to listen to me a little while\u2026.\u201d(52) A year later he wrote: \u201cI recd a letter from sister Mary last night.\u00a0 She informs me that you have red 6 letters from me lately which I am glad to hear & anxiously look for a letter from you.\u00a0 Then I may have something to found a letter upon.\u201d (158) On several occasions William also asked for \u201clikenesses\u201d or \u201cphotographs\u201d of his family.\u00a0 (3, 152)\u00a0 Samaria wrote to him: \u201cThoes Potograps cant be beat\u2026.I have one of them whare we can se it all the time\u2026.\u201d (183)<\/p>\n

Some of the gossip from home underscored how serving in a company of men from one\u2019s own county limited privacy. \u00a0In December of 1862, Samaria apparently wrote to William about local gossip that he had been with other women.\u00a0 William wrote back: \u201cI think the folks at home must have very little to do and you dear Wife inflicted a severe wound in my Heart when you intimated that I had been unfaithful to you God bless.\u201d(31) In the spring of 1863 McKnight wrote to Samaria that he had heard folks at home were gossiping again and tried to defend himself: \u201cI never did run after Bad Women but even if I did there is no reason for any such report to get afloat about me.\u201d (88) Over the next few weeks he signed off penitently: \u201cYour absent and almost Broken Hearted William\u201d (89) and \u201cyour unworthy Husband\u201d (90).\u00a0 When Samaria did not write to him, he became nearly desperate: \u201cOh how I study over it think of evry thing but cant imagine why am so neglected.\u00a0 I know I deserve nothing better but stil I did not expect to be entirely neglected by every one\u2026. It is a bad state of things when a soldier has to defend his caracter at home and his life abroad one at a time is enough.\u201d (91-92)<\/p>\n

Samaria forgave him.\u00a0 At least McKnight went home for two short furloughs in the summers of 1863 and 1864.\u00a0 And in the two letters in the collection from Samaria to William, written in the last month of his life, she wrote: \u201cI have but one falt to find with your letters love and that is they ant long enough or you don’t write half as mutch as I like to hear.\u201d (177) \u00a0\u201cOh let me hear from you often.\u00a0 If you dont get a letter for every one you write so be a good man and I will do the best I can until then.\u201d (184)<\/p>\n

Samaria McKnight raised their six children by herself and never re-married.\u00a0 When she died, in 1905, her son asked the U.S. Pensions Agent in Columbus to direct the last two months of William McKnight\u2019s pension to the daughter who had stayed at home to take care of Samaria. (193)<\/p>\n

Collections of letters are not easy fare for undergraduates or even more mature readers.\u00a0 But Do They Miss Me at Home<\/em> is in many ways more compelling than fiction or a carefully wrought historical monograph. There is William McKnight, by himself, writing to his beloved Samaria, about the most difficult situations of his life, hoping that he will be lucky enough to once again join her and the children back in Ohio.<\/p>\n

Andrew J. Carlson<\/p>\n

Capital University<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Donald C. Maness and H. Jason Combs\u2019s edited volume, Do They Miss Me at Home, is an absolutely fascinating collection of 108 letters, written mostly from William McKnight to his wife, Samaria, between 1862 and 1864 when he was with the Seventh Ohio Volunteer Cavalry. From the larger perspective of the Civil War drama, McKnight\u2019s … Continue reading Book Review: Do They Miss Me at Home? The Civil War Letters of William McKnight, Seventh Ohio Volunteer Cavalry. Edited by Donald C. Maness and H. Jason Combs. Athens, Ohio: Ohio University Press, 2010. xv, 271 pp. Hardcover. $ 35.96. ISBN 9780821419144.<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2442,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[44086],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2002","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-volume-9-issue-1-fall-2015"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uakron.edu\/nojh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2002","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uakron.edu\/nojh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uakron.edu\/nojh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uakron.edu\/nojh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2442"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uakron.edu\/nojh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2002"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uakron.edu\/nojh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2002\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2006,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uakron.edu\/nojh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2002\/revisions\/2006"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uakron.edu\/nojh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2002"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uakron.edu\/nojh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2002"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uakron.edu\/nojh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2002"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}