The Northern Soldier and His Community

Abstract

In sorrow and in anger, Lt. George Kies wrote to his wife in Connecticut from Baltimore, where his company was stationed. “I received a letter from som one yesterday purporting to be from you but i cannot think that you would write me such a letter.” His wife scolded him for not writing to her, but he had sent her letters. His wife accused him of involvement with another woman with whom he supposedly had had clandestine rendezvous in Philadelphia. She thought he had spent the money they needed to buy gravestones for their dead children on furs for the other woman. These accusations were so detailed that Kies could only conclude somebody was deliberately telling lies to create trouble for him with his wife. “The one who says I hav is a liar and i would tell them so though [they] are as big as Christ himself.” Whoever it was, it upset Kies that his wife believed others instead of him. They had told her that he was telling women that his wife was dead and that he was not a married man. “You say that the soldiers say that i did not take your Death very hard. If you will tell me what soldiers told that i will let you know how hard they will take there [own] Death.” His wife's economic well-being worried him; he offered to send her all his pay and to steal for his own living.