Manuscript Database
Creator/Title
Stow family. Papers, 1820-1923. 6 cu. ft.
Call No.
Mss. A S891 / 23, 142, 167-168, 170, 227
Content
This collection centers on several generations of the Stow family, Methodists and farmers in Switzerland County, Indiana in the 19th century. On 15 July 1861, Theodore Manser writes about a (mistaken) rumor that secessionists were going to pass through Covington, Kentucky, which brought out the home guard (23). In a letter dated 15 June 1862, Hiram Dean writes Baron Stow from Madison, Indiana, referencing rumors about "two hundred Rebels guerrillas" across the river in Kentucky and Union soldiers who arrested some of them (142). In a letter dated 30 December 1861, Union soldier Josiah C. Thompson writes Baron Stow about enjoying some free time in Louisville, where "there are some twenty or more regiments encamped in the vicinity of the city" (167). In letters from the first half of 1862, Thompson writes from Camp Wickliffe and from Bowling Green. He describes his regiment's work trying to rebuild a railroad bridge, references a train bound for Nashville that had been seized by John Hunt Morgan's guerrilla band at Gallatin, and relates what Bowling Green residents have told him about the shelling of their town by the Confederates. He also writes of treachery and "Secesh" sentiments among the citizens of the town and the surrounding area, and the onslaught of guerrilla warfare from the Rebels. In July 1862, he tells Uzziel Stow that Bowling Green, like other towns in Kentucky, "has been in a constant state of excitement for the last three weeks expecting the approach of the marauder Morgan" (168). 1862 letters from Moses L. Cole reference Brig. Gen. Simon Bolivar Buckner, Confederate attacks and their driving of cattle into ponds to "poison" the water, the regiment's activities, and cases of the measles at Camp Wickliffe and in Bowling Green (170). Josiah Thompson's diary from March-September 1861 documents what he in Switzerland County, Indiana hears about the war, including news about towns and cities in Kentucky that had "gone strong for the union" (227).