“Dear Wife,
I am pained to give you and the friends at home the sad news that poor Levi Hennis is killed. He was shot yesterday while on the skirmish line. He was killed about 2 O’clock in the afternoon. A musket ball struck him just below the right corner of his mouth and lodged in the lower part of the back of his head. He died almost instantly. He only crossed his arms over his face and exclaimed, “Oh!”
I got permission to see him buried as decently as we could here. We took him a little to the rear of our lines. I selected a spot and buried him very decently with military honors and divine service by our late Chaplain Shin. Levi has been a good solider, always willing to do his duty and highly respected by all who knew him. He had fired bout 75 rounds yesterday before he was hit. But I trust he is in a better situation than he possibly could be in this world of sorrow and contention.
Jacob Shively
Poor Levi had appeared to have some foreboding of his misfortune and at different times he has spoke of it. The morning before he was killed he remarked that he had a new shirt that he had sent fo him while at Ringgold. He put it on and said he would put it on or it would not do him any good as he expected to be killed. He was killed with it on.“
Patricia F. Medert, ed., Dear Compannion…Yours Untill Death Jacob Shively 89th Regt. O.V.I.: The Civil War Letters of Jacob Shively (Chillicothe, Ohio: Ross County Historical Society, 2001), 55.
A Thousand Thunders 