• Full Citation: Stephen Keyes Fletcher, "The Civil War Journal of Stephen Keyes Fletcher," ed. Perry McCandless, Indiana Magazine of History 54, no. 2 (June 1958): 141-190.
• Home: Marion County (Indianapolis)
• Year: 1862
• Regiment: 33rd Indiana Volunteer Infantry
• Abstract: Fletcher (1840-1897) flipped a coin with his brother Ingraham to see who would go to war and who would stay home, and Ingraham stayed on the farm. Fletcher enlisted in October 1861 and served through 1865, though his journal covers only January-September 1862. In this period, the 33rd spent January-April in Lexington, Ky., then moved to the Cumberland River, then spent the end of June-September in Cumberland Gap, after the battle of Cumberland Gap was over. The article contains several facimile pages of his journal. Fletcher later transferred to the 115th Indiana.
• Sample Text:
  1. "Where is all that romance in camp life that you read about in so many novels...But where, where, is the romance, the pleasure of war. You can put it all in your eye." (April 1862, Cumberland River, p. 161)
  2. "Then our tent, next to a soldier's home, is next to his heart...I love its shelter. & there is my bed, although made of secesh puncheons, on no bed did I ever sleep sweeter. Here in my solders home I have read & slept & dreamed, Dreamed of that other home away off in Hoosier." (Sept. 18, 1862, on leaving gear behind in Cumberland Gap, p. 182)
• LC Subject Headings:
  1. United States. Army. Indiana Infantry Regiment, 33rd (1861-1865)
  2. Cumberland Gap Campaign, 1862

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