Civil War Archive of Brothers William & James Barton, Both KIA, 8th Michigan Infantry, Featuring Action-Packed Correspondence

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Nov 18, 2016 - Nov 19, 2016

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• Lot Description
  Lot of 119, including 33 letters from soldier brothers William and James Barton (8th Michigan Infantry, both KIA) from the front, almost every letter containing some description of combat; single letter from Private and Engineer Matthew B. Mallory, 21^st MI Volunteers, DOW; 2 letters from Jacob Hale, a missionary and soldier in the 21^st MI; 26 miscellaneous family letters and papers; 2 CDVs of James Barton; and an album containing 56 family photographs, many identified.
  
  It is hard to fathom the pain a parent feels when losing a child; even more so when a parent loses two. Hiram and Phidelia Melissa Barton unfortunately experienced an unbelievable amount of pain when both of their sons, William and James, died in the Civil War.
  
  James and William were two of five Barton children. Their father, Hiram S. Barton, was born in New York on April 12, 1818. He was a laborer and married Phidelia December 6, 1839 in Michigan. They quickly started a family and had William within their first year of marriage. More, including James, soon followed.
  
  Being so close in age, one can imagine William and James did everything together. The brothers enlisted on August 15, 1861 and mustered into the same company and regiment, the 8th MI Infantry, Co. H., on September 23, 1861. The year before, James applied for settlement in the swamp lands in Pierson, MI, but abandoned his dreams to fight for his country. His father went to his home to retrieve what little belongings he had to help the family. I wish I had more for him, wrote James to his family (Washington, DC, 1861). Two months into his enlistment, James was ready for battle. He wrote, We here that the enemy are going to whip us they will have a nice time if they do for we are fortifying and building a fort that they won't take right away (Fort Walker, Hilton Head, SC, November 20, 1861). James received the fight he wanted, and the fortifications helped combat encroaching rebel forces. Over the next few months, the coast was a hotbed of action. Troops barely had enough time to bury the dead. James wrote to his family:
  
  There has been a battle about 17 miles from here. Our navy made an atact a fort called philasci (Pulaski) on the twenty 7 and 8 we took the fort after 2 days struggle. We lost our gunboat that was sunk and badly maimed. The killed and wounded could not be numbered on either side. Since we took this fort they found a pit in the found 25 dead bodies in that the rebels had burned thy had not got time to get them away (Fort Walker, Hilton Head, SC, December 1, 1861).
  
  James continued to write his family of the many battles he and William fought in the Carolinas:
  
  We had a battle on James River we landed we had about four thousand men the fire of one of the gunboats the rebels was thrown back 4 times one our regiment had orders to march up before the enemy. The enemy was in the woods. We drove them from the river shore…we took a fort and eighteen gun our regiment marched up before the rebels when they opened fire on us we bagan to fire on them the fight lasted nearly two hours and the rebels retreated about two miles back into the woods. The gunboats there shells into the woods and killed a great many. We only one man and 6 wounded but most fatal our major was wounded in the fight a negro that came from the main land and said we killed nearly 500 rebels the rebels came in the night with the flag of truce and wanted 10 hours to carry off their dead. Our general gave them one hour. They carryed off the dead by the cartloads we feel well since the battle that we come off as well as we did and hope to have another (Fort Walker, Hilton Head, SC, January 6, 1862).
  
  Some of James’ officers were less eager for battle, especially cowardly Captain Turner. [While] bombarding Fort Walker [Turner] was so frightened him so he sh*t his britches…no fooling about it, reported James (January 26, 1862). Turner resigned from the position for cowardice and Doyle took his commission. Turner’s reaction is more understandable after James described the skirmish to his family:  
  
  Some of our company killed one of their officers on horseback, thare was five ball holes through him [the Rebels] killed on of our men and wounded eight the gun boats threw shells in to them. One shell killed ten or twelve men they could so them with thare spy glasses legs and arms and heads flew in every direction when the shells busted. They can throw them just where they have a mind to they can thro them four miles if they wanted to (January 26, 1862).
  
  The coast calmed for a short while and the brothers stood guard at the fort for most of February. When spring arrived, so did the artillery guns. The action inhibited James from writing letters to his friends. His sweetheart, Cordillia Fulk, wrote a desperate letter to him:
  
  My dear I have begun to think you are ded or sic or what can the matter be that you don’t write anymore…it has bin one month now sense I received your last on but I am looking for one everyday…my dear remember me how many miles apart remember me when this you see and place it in your heart remember that I will you the same (March 8, 1862).
  
  Another friend and fellow soldier, John Davis, wrote him a similar letter and checked for vital signs:
  
  James I would like to see you and have a long chat with you both but we cannot tell when we will be together again it will be some time…I think I have heard your regiment has been in a fight since you left Michigan…if you see a rebble sick you must give him pill in order to have him take it you must put it in your rifle and then give it to him with a little powder in the bottom (Benton Barracks, St. Louis, February 12, 1862).
  
  James administered a lot of medicine in the form of powder and shells to the enemy. The fights continued on into April. William described it to his sister:
  
  Our troops made an atact on Fort Pulaski. We have been to work a great while to get things fixed to take this fort. We have 6 batteries the whole 26 pieces. Our men had all the work to do in the night on account of the rebels shelling them. Our regiment lays on Tybee Island about a half a mile from the fort there is to holes through the fort large enough to drive a load of hay in…(Port Royal, April 14, 1862).
  
  The next day, William wrote his father in more detail:
  
  As soon as it was daylight [we fired on the fort] and kept up a steady roaring all that day and the next day until three in the afternoon when the rebels hoisted a flag of reduce and our men started firing and the general and a few more went over to the fort and he came back and said they had surrendered. And they took one regiment of our men and put them on the fort to guard the prisoners we took three hundred and fifty prisoners. It was an awful sight to look at the fort it was a large fort made of brick lad in sement the walls are 15 feet through one side of the fort and in one hour more they would have broke through into the magazine and blown it is said to be as strong a fort as there is in seecshdom…one regiment lay of a distance off about the distance of to miles and a half when they fired from the fort the shells passed directly over our heads some would burst and drop all around us. There is sait to be 50 guns in the fort (April 15, 1862).
  
  On the morning of April 16, William postmarked his letter home. Later that day, several companies including James' and William's took a wrong turn. They encountered a rebel picket post. The surprise resulted in heavy casualties on both sides, one of whom was James Barton. William was unable to comfort his brother in his last moments and say his last goodbye. He did; however, see his brother fall. He has fallen for a good cause, wrote William to his parents, He fought brave and faced the enemy like a man. A nobler heart never beat beneath any man either on the battlefield or anywhere else (Beaufort, SC, April 26, 1862).
  
  Fighting continued and William wrote many letters home describing enemy movements and being under fire:
  
  The enemy was stationed all along the ditch on both sides of the road and as fast as one man would come on site they would fire at us. That after a short time the 79 one company of them came up on the left and fired them they did stand long then. They broke for the woods. As soon as they began to retreat our men came up on double quick. Laid down the bridge then crossed the infantry then the rear leg sent them after the enemy by that time they had got sent more regiments that could over power our force that we had that day. Our troops was so fatigued with the extremely hot weather. I was never so uneasy [illegible] as I was then….The 50^th Pennsylvania took the levi that day the fiercest fight they have ever been in they had 9 killed 7 wounded. There was a captain killed dead on the spot shot through the head the wounded are getting along well. They are not mortally wounded (Beaufort, SC, May 31, 1862).
  
  A string of demoralizing Union losses happened in the summer including a failed attempt to take Charleston by land. William wrote:
  
  [I have never seen a] sight before in all my days I never want to see the same again. Our regiment was cut to pieces we did not get help soon enough to take the fort I was able to retreat the fort cant be taken by charge it has got to be shelled and our men is making preparations for an atact. I think they will be ready to open on them about next Monday morning. There was 94 killed wounded and missing from our company and out of the regiment 900 and 10 killed wounded and missing and 93 out of that regiment is missing our loss in all is 600 and 74 in all (No. 2, partial letter, no date).
  
  As in life, the boys were close in death. William died of wounds incurred on the field in Alexandria, VA; five months after James. Mary Jane mournfully wrote, James H. Barton shot Apr. 16 in the US service in a skirmish near fort pulaski in Georgia age 22 yrs 6 mo and 12 days. Underneath James' entry she wrote, Wm. E. Barton died Sept. 16th in the US service from a wound received at the battle of manasses state of VA age 20 years 1 mo 13 days.
  
  Beyond William and James, the Bartons had several other members in the family and friends fighting for the Union. Their cousin Matthew B. Mallory served as an engineer in the 21^st MI Volunteer Infantry. He wrote to Mary Jane from Chattanooga:
  
  [I] am still working on a bridge and expect to stay here about two months more and then expect to go upon Lookout Mountain to build some hospitals expect to stay there six months (Chattanooga, TN, May 1, 1864).
  
  Unfortunately, Mallory suffered the same fate as his cousins. Just a year after enlisting, he was wounded in Bentonville, NC. Nine days later, he died of his wounds on March 28, 1865.
  
  A family friend, Jacob M. Hale, served in the same regiment as Mallory and worked as a missionary to slaves. He wrote to his wife, Mary, discussing news from his hospital bed:
  
  I am improving in helth some although it is very sickly to hear among us eleven died in two days in the hospital since we started from Vicksburg many are sick on every boat about four hundred sick on the hospital boat…Many are having the feaver and ague and dijarea I think if we were cept down at Vicksburg we should all ben sick and the most of us would have died (On the Mississippi River, July 13, 1863).
  
  He recovered. The next month, Hale wrote a letter directly to Hiram Barton explaining the desolation of both the land and soul in the South:  
  
  Last year when the bombs and shells were flying thick and fast and lay over the ground now on that ground the gospel is preached and have had daily school but the teacher has died across the river from Vicksburg. There is about four or five hundred of coloured people who have ben under the yoke of oppression who have been laboring for their masters all their days. Many have become rich have prospered like the green bay tree. Many have not had the privilege of worshipping the lord only as they stole away after a hard day’s labour in some secreted place and had a worship sometimes the master or overseer would find it out and strip them to the hide and lash them from three to five hundred blows. Scars they will carry to the grave yet amid this many are shining not with color of the outward [illegible] man but I find by conversing with many they are laying up a treasure that out sine all the riches of the south or north or east or west there is great faith among them…They have many good preachers some who can’t read. Perhaps you would be glad to hear how we are gitting along we have had some hard struggles awhile back we have killed some who have ben on this boat as prisoners took the oath and went at it again (Milliken's Bend, August 6, 1864).
  
  Fortunately, Hale did not share the same fate as the Bartons or their cousin. He returned home to his farm and family after the war and died of heart disease in 1879.  
  
  Provenance: Acquired from the Miller Family Estate, Upper Arlington, Ohio

  Condition

  Typical folds of the letters and toning of the paper. The penmanship and sentence structure of the brother's letters can be somewhat difficult to decipher but all letters have been transcribed by a previous owner. 
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