These letters were written by 31 year-old George Washington Stull (1831-1904) of Harveysburg, Fountain County, Indiana, who served in Co. E, 63rd Indiana Infantry. George’s company was on duty in Indianapolis during the fall of 1862 and the summer of 1863, serving as provost guards at Camp Morton and acting as the Governor’s “enforcers.”
From the first letter we learn that George served on a detail that left Indianapolis in late February for a two-week excursion down the Mississippi River to Memphis during which time he had the opportunity to visit Island No. 10, Fort Pillow, Fort Madrid, and the Union fortifications around Memphis. It is speculation on my part, but I think Pvt. Stull may have been part of a detachment from the 63rd Indiana Infantry serving as an escort to some twenty nurses who answered Gov. Morton’s call to serve in the Union hospitals in Memphis. The nurses are known to have traveled to Memphis during this period.
George’s brothers Aquilla Stull (1833-1923) and Catlett Richardson Stull (1841-1922), also served in the 63rd Indiana Infantry — Aquilla in Company D and Catlett in Company I. All three survived the war. They were the sons of Jacob Stull (1803-1889) and Rachel Donahue (1812-1887).
George was married in 1853 to Frances Ann Blevins (1831-1905) and together they had at least ten children, seven of whom outlived their father. George died at his home 2.5 miles north of Harveysburg, Indiana, in 1904.
Letter 1
March the 6th 1863
[Indianapolis, Indiana]
Respected Friend,
I make my pen in hand to let you know that I am well and hearty this evening and I hope when these few lines come to hand, they may find you and family well and enjoying the same rich blessing. Jackson, I have a great deal of news for to relate to you. I have just got home from the South and while I was sitting in my lonesome hut, I thought that I would write you a few lines to let you know that I have not forgotten you yet. But it appears that you have forgotten me. This makes two letters that I have written to you and I have not got a line from you. But I still live in hope to get a letter from you or some of my old log rolling friends from old Fountain and Parke [Counties]. I have written to several of my neighbors but it appears that they have all forgotten me. I suppose they all think because I have sacrificed my home and friends for the protection of our country that I won’t never get back and be a citizen amongst them all. But I hope that God will be on my side and guide me through safe and sound to serve my three years out for my country and then get an honorable discharge to come home to my helpless family to live my few days out where all of my future happiness depends, and have the pleasure of enjoying myself with them and my neighbors.
Jackson, tell them all that if they know the comfort that a few lines give me that they all would write to me surely and let me know what they all are doing. And Jackson, I mean you too, to write and let me know how everything that surrounds you are getting along.
Jackson, I must give you a history of my big trip that I have had through the Rebel country. I started from Indianapolis on the 23rd day of February and I never got back to camp until the 6th of March. I was eight hundred and fifty miles south in the Rebel country. I was on Island No. 10 while I was gone. There was about three thousand of Union troops on the island. I seen 42 large cannon that the Rebels spiked and left there. The Union men had them all piled up to send them off to get them fixed for themselves. They had their cannons placed all around the island ready to defend it if they should get attacked. Jackson, it is a pretty place. It is surrounded by the Mississippi River. It is in the Missouri about sixty-five miles below Cairo.
Jackson, I was in five forts while I was gone. Fort Pillow is the next. It is in Tennessee on the bank right where the boat stopped. It is on a high hill as there is on the waters of Greene’s Creek. The Rebels had their rifle pits dug for one mile on the bank close to the river. They had their cannon placed on top of the hill so they could shoot up or down the river. But they give it up and now the Union boys hold it now and say that they intend to hold it as long as there is dirt to bury a man on that hill. There is not many troops there but they are well fortified to defend that place. There is some two or three thousand in camp there.
The next was Fort Madrid. That was not much of a place. What few houses that was there had been burnt and the place was evacuated — nobody there — not even a Union man. It was a place of desolation and destruction.
From there I took the broad waters of the Mississippi to Memphis and there I seen something worth telling. There is about thirty thousand troops there. They have destroyed about one third of the town to get it out of the way of the range of their cannons. They have got a fort that will hold fifty thousand men. They have got their cannons planted and ranged to sweep the river for two miles. If the Rebels undertake to to take that place, they will have a good time. They have got from two hundred and fifty to three hundred cannons ready and waiting. They are from twelve pounders up to one hundred and sixty-fours — that is the different sizes of the cannons.
Jackson, there was a town [Hopefield, Arkansas] ¹ that had about five hundred inhabitants in it just across the river from Memphis that was burnt two days before I got down there. Every house was burnt in the city — even to the smokehouses. Nothing standing but the chimneys and everybody had left.
I want you to let Fanny and Yuilles see this letter. Jackson, so no more at present. But remain your friend until death, — George W. Stull
Write soon as you get this letter and tell Yuilles to write too.
¹ Federal troops burned Hopefield, Arkansas on 19 February 1863 — just two weeks before George’s visit. Until federal troops first took control of the town in June 1862, the shops, depot, and engine shed of the Memphis & Little Rock Railroad that were located in Hopefield were used by the Confederates to modernize rifles. When Confederate guerrillas continued to use the town to harass Union river traffic, four companies of the 63rd Illinois were sent across the river from Memphis to burn the entire town.
Letter 2
Camp near Knoxville, Tennessee
February 3rd 1865
Respected friend at home,
I find myself seated today for the first time for some time to let you know that I am well and hearty and in the best of spirits hoping these few lines may find you the same. I just have got a paper which gives me the most encouraging news that I have read for some time and I thought that I would send it to you and let you read it for yourself. It is reported that Jeff Davis has consented to send three men to Washington for the purpose of making peace. He has got to think that his cause is a poor one and is now almost ready to acknowledge there Independence of our National flag. Jackson, God send how soon that will be the case. Jack, if he don’t come to terms soon, we will fetch him at the point of a bayonet before long. Jack, I have had several big raids after some of his [ ] hoist of devils and outrages of the earth since I seen you, but I don’t feel any the worst of the wear for it. I reckon the reason is that I feel so good is that we have been so successful in giving them
what Paddy gave the drum that was hell over the face and eyes. I believe those fine and large victories is some encourage, ents to me which you will see in the letters that I have written home and to my friends since I seen you. But I suppose you have seen accounts of them in your papers before.
Jack, I will give you a small sketch of the Stoneman Raid that I was in. After I got back to my command, General Gillam attacked the Rebs at the Strawberry Plains on the 15th of November with the 8th and 9th and 13th Tennessee Regiments and was repulsed by the Rebs. He was reinforced by Stoneman and General Almond and we drove the Rebs after we got reinforcements for six days. On the expedition we captured and brought away 900 prisoners, eight thousand hogs, 200 mules, [and] 900 Niggers. [We] destroyed eleven foundries and ninety flouring and saw mills together [with] thirty bridges, thirteen locomotives, and one hundred cars and twenty pieces of artillery, besides a large quantity of small arms. [We] burned the salt works and the town of Marion and the town of Abington. Besides thousands of other little things too tedious to mention and retreated in good order to Knoxville and went in winter quarters. So we have been here ever since—only when we got out on scouts to settle the scattered Rebs that is still left here. You will see by reading the paper that we have got several here yet to watch.
We had a little spat with the Rebs at Athens 40 miles below here on the road to Chattanooga. They attacked our force that was on duty there and took twenty of our Rebel prisoners and killed two. There was not but one company of the Second Ohio. They sent to Knoxville for help and Company I of the Second Ohio and the 13th Tennessee went to their relief and we only got halfway down there and the train run off the track and killed Lieutenant Smith of Co. I, and two privates, and wounded 23 and since that 4 of the boys that was wounded died from their wounds. But the balance went on and routed the Rebels. So no more at present.
Jack this is all the paper that I have and a long ways from home without much money. I have not been paid for eight months, Nor I don’t know how long it will be until I do get paid. Maybe not until I am mustered out. So no more at present but still remain your absent friend until death. — George W. Stull
to John J. Lewis at home.
Tell Fanny and the children howdy and tell them that I am well and wants to see them all very bad.
Address this, George W. Still, Knoxville, Tennesese
Letter 3
[Note: The following is a partial letter written from Indiana in the fall of 1863. It refers to Morgan’s Raid.]
The enemy but could see where the balls came from. They were in the woods a good ways off and after I got back I hadn’t been to camp but one day and I was picked out and forty-nine others to take a scout in Boone county, this state, some twenty or 30 miles from here. We had a good time in a little town called Whitestown. We was called for to take some men that would not give their names to the enrolling officers of the township and the news come that there was five or six hundred men there in the county armed and ready to clean us out. But the commander of the company was one of the boys that didn’t think so. We went there in the night and when we got there we went on through and stopped about two miles from the town and the train was stopped and there we got off and we wasn’t allowed to speak over our breaths when we got off. We slipped into a dark piece of woods and there we organized and laid the plan to make the [ ]. Me and ten others of the boys stood picket all night about half a mile from where [were camped]. The balance of the boys stayed to give the alarm if we was attacked. It was dark and in the woods and when I was put on my post, the Captain told me that if anybody come in [ ] to fire on them and retreat towards him and they all would reinforce me and the balance of the boys that stood picket at the same time was to retreat if there was a gun fired by the picket. It was a signal for the balance to get ready. But we stood all night or until 3 o’clock next morning [when] the pickets was called in and we marched back to that little town and surrounded it and arrested fifteen men and brought them to this city for trial.
Jackson, John [H.] Morgan is in the state now. The news come here for troops and the Seventy-first has gone down to meet him. He crossed not far from Evansville and I have not heard what was done yet. Jackson, I got a letter from Murphy and he wrote to me that he was not well.
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