Letters from the 89th Ohio Volunteer Infantry. Hundreds of letters between a semi-educated Ohio farmer and his wife, Mary, written from 1862 to 1865 — transcribed, annotated, and set beside the record of the war he marched through.
The letters, in order
1862
A call to arms, and the defense of Cincinnati
Jacob leaves home at twenty-nine, reports to camp, and writes his first letters to Mary from the Kentucky camps.
1863
Chickamauga and Missionary Ridge
The regiment is nearly destroyed, Jacob takes a facial wound, and the tide turns above Chattanooga.
1864–1865
Atlanta, the March to the Sea, the Grand Review
Color Sergeant at Rocky Face Ridge and Kennesaw Mountain, then Savannah, the Carolinas, and home.
I began transcribing Jacob’s letters in earnest in 2017 and have worked steadily on reconstructing his story ever since.
Jacob buried his sister’s brother-in-law, Levi Henness (37 years old) outside of Atlanta, Georgia, on 20 July 1864, during the Battle of Peachtree Creek. He saw Levi die. The musket ball that killed Levi entered his face and lodged in the back of his head. Levi’s last word was, “Oh.” During the impromptu battlefield burial that followed, the presiding chaplain (Chaplain Shinn) was struck in the foot with a spent round. The burial continued.
After Jacob’s unit was decimated at Chickamauga, he wrote to his wife, Mary, “I have often heard it said that no pen could describe the battlefield in time of action. And I can now say I have experienced it and I know one cannot have an idea scarcely of a battle unless they have seen one. A thousand thunders are not equal to the sound – and the shouts of the charging columns, the shrieks and groans of the dying and wounded – it appears like they will never cease to ring in my ears.”
I’m quite sure they never did.
Jacob lived a full life after the war. He channeled his energy into his family, farm, church, and committees that constructed memorials for his comrades-in-arms who didn’t return home. I’m forever in the debt of family members who have safeguarded these amazing letters since the 1860s. These letters, along with the pieces of his story I’ve been able to resurrect from the obscurity of the years through other resources, provide a vivid reminder of the humanity of the common soldier. Jacob’s writings also prove that each of our nation’s war-wounded can find hope and healing from the thousand thunders that ring in their ears long after the noise of war has ceased.
— Kevin Hostettler
Research and writing
“In Myth and Memory: The Efficacy of New England Civil War Chaplains.” PhD diss., Liberty University, 2026.
- The Efficacy of the Civil War Chaplaincy: Fifth Wheel or Godsend?
- A review: A Worse Place Than Hell
- Postbellum coffee and tea consumption in the United States
- Nashville’s Maxwell House and Joel Cheek’s coffee empire
Get in touch
If you hold Shively family papers, research New England chaplains, or want to ask about the letters, send a note.
