Courtship, Community, and Conflict: Montgomery County in the Civil War

Introduction

SourceLab
Vol. 1, No. 5 (2018)
10.21900/j.sourcelab.v1.440
Creative Commons License

The American Civil War looms large in our country’s history, leaving a legacy of bloodshed, racial division, and political action that continues to resonate through the United States to the present day. Wartime questions of statehood, slavery, and American identity remain important to the political structures and social issues that Americans face in the twenty-first century. Within the grand sweeping narratives of the war effort, Union victory, and preservation of the United States lie oft-forgotten stories of small-town America and rural communities that were central to the war. The humanity and individuality of those involved in the Civil War are often forgotten in favor of famous stories of battles, generals, and political upheaval. The letters of the McNitt collection bring to the foreground these forgotten aspects of domestic and family life, too often overlooked in the midst of one of the most influential time periods in United States' history.

Central to this project is Sophronia McNitt, a young woman who lived in rural Southern Illinois. Collecting the letters written to Sophronia allows us to analyze not just the battles of the Civil War, but also the ways the War impacted American communities across the country. The McNitt papers were produced primarily by men and women from Montgomery County, Illinois. The men were volunteer soldiers in half a dozen Regiments fighting across the Western theater of the Civil War. These letters showcase first-hand accounts of major battles, but also show how people maintained and built their community even as they were separated by vast distances. As those men fought bloody battles and endured inhospitable conditions, they constantly took time to reminisce or gossip about marriages, lives, affairs, and state of their neighbors. Through these correspondences, they maintained their small town community from hundreds, if not thousands, of miles away.

This SourceLab edition offers an intimate, human look at men who were not just soldiers and statistics in a war, but complex human beings who had lives and a community that endured despite the conflict and distance. We illustrate not only the ways in which romance operated in post-antebellum America, but also how the Civil War strained and changed methods of courtship, friendship, and love.

The Illinois History and Lincoln Collections at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign archived and preserved the letters in the McNitt collection. We intend this edition, which presents twenty-nine letters, for use by historians, researchers, and individuals interested in the Civil War or those wanting to gain a better understanding of community, love, and culture in nineteenth-century America.

With contributions from Alison Mink. 
Pictured above: Cress Farm, a picture from the McNitt Family letters, shows Eli Cress, a soldier from Montgomery County who fought with the Illinois 117th Volunteer Regiment. He sent many letters back to Sophronia McNitt during the war. After the war, the two married and created a home together. Although Eli died in 1871, Sophronia continued work on the farm until her own death in 1933.

Source: McNitt Family Papers, MS 117, Illinois History and Lincoln Collections, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Library.

 

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