• Full Citation: E.W.H. Beck, "Letters of a Civil War Surgeon," Indiana Magazine of History 27, no. 2 (June 1931): 132-163.
• Home: Carroll County (Delphi)
• Years: 1861-1864
• Regiment: 2nd Brigade, 3rd Indiana Calvary
• Engagements: 2nd Manassas, Antietam, Chancellorsville, Petersburg
• Abstract: Beck's letters (to his wife and children, parents, and friends) cover the period Nov. 11, 1861-Aug. 3, 1864. There is not much context or editing and the letters can be hard to follow. One of the most interesting letters [Sept. 21, 1862] is a lengthy description of his participation in Antietam. He often writes of the ineptitude of the military leadership, the human and physical landscape he travels through, and his desire to go home and be away from the carnage increases as time passes. During the Petersburg raid, he describes Confederates killing civilians.
• Sample Text:
  1. "I swear I could take Clay & Straw & make better Generals than any we have been under yet." [July 14, 1862, Fredericksburg, Va.]
  2. "God grant that you may never see the destruction of human life & the human misery I have witnessed....Those who have been in all the Battles of the war think that no one day's fighting was as terrible & general as this....I saw the Body of a Brooklyn Boy a new recruit and that married on Thursday at home came on Friday & joined his Regt at Frederich [Fredericksburg] & was killed on Sunday..." [Sept. 21, 1862, Williamsport, Md.]
  3. Hello Hello- a fuss around in Camp- President Lincoln has just rode up to Headquarters in an Ambulance & is talking now to McC [McClellan] and Burnsides- he came from Harpers ferry this morning The old fellow is droping 'round everywhere- he is a good man if he had only more back- bone- " [Oct. 2, 1862, Sharpsburg, Md.]
• LC Subject Headings:
  1. United States. Army. Indiana Cavalry Regiment, 3rd (1861-1865)
  2. Manassas, 2nd Battle of, Va., 1862
  3. Antietam, Battle of, Md., 1862
  4. Chancellorsville, Battle of, Chancellorsville, Va., 1863
  5. Petersburg (Va.) History Siege, 1864-1865

Print Window      Close Window