Introduction

This website was created as a means of preserving and making available a Civil War-era collection of thirty-four letters from my Great-Great Grandfather Edward Griffin Stevens to his mother Emma Stevens (with the exception of one letter addressed to his sister Lydia). These letters chronicle historic events including the Siege of Vicksburg, the Battle of Franklin, the Battle of Nashville, the Election of 1864, and the Lincoln assassination, among other significant events. The letters are ordered chronologically, and all but the first two and final two are from his time as a soldier in the Union Army.

Edward was born in 1842 in Bideford, England. Shortly after his birth, in 1842 or 1843, his family moved to Prince Edward's Island, Canada and lived there for several years. They then moved through Nova Scotia, Canada in the late 1840s and settled in Machias, Maine in either 1849 or 1850. From there they moved to Flushing, New York around 1852, finally settling in Aurora, Illinois in either 1855 or 1856. In Edward's pension papers (and in one other family source), he claims that the family lost many of their possessions in a Great Lakes shipwreck somewhere between Buffalo, New York and Chicago, Illinois at some point during the the mid-1850s. Edward's parents, Robert Sr. and Emma, had at least ten children before the father died in 1859.

Edward worked in a drug store in Aurora in the late 1850s - and at some point around 1860, he moved to Galesburg, Illinois - where his sister Kate M. Stevens Dyer also lived with her husband and younger sister Grace Stevens.

In August 1862 - Edward enlisted as a Corporal in the 72nd Illinois Infantry Regiment, Company K (his daughter Leila recounted that he lied about his age at the time) and served as a soldier, druggist and clerk until the end of the war. It was during this time that the letters on this site were written. Edward had an older brother named Robert who served in the war with the 124th Illinois Infantry, Company E, and whose death on February 17 or 18, 1863 of typhoid pneumonia is described in three of the letters. (Some records pertaining to Robert incorrectly list him as dying in 1862 at LaGrange, Tennessee).

Edward also had a younger brother named William who served with the 52nd Illinois Infantry, Company H, but served less than a year, and was discharged in August 1862 due to serious health problems from which he subsequently suffered until his death in 1885.

Edward also mentions other siblings Lydia, Kate, Grace, Clint, Emma and the children of Emma - niece Sabra and nephew Eddie Tewksbury.

After the war he returned to Illinois and married a Margaret Burns in 1869. The marriage did not last, and he moved to Wilton, Iowa in the mid-1870s, where he married his second wife, Josephine Neavitt in 1876. He worked as a skilled painter for most of his life and passed away in 1917. He is buried in Wilton, Iowa.

(Edward Griffin Stevens - probably after the war)

Emma Griffin Stevens (around 1880)

Edward's sister Lydia Levo Stevens (married an Ayers)

Robert Bartlett Stevens - Edward's older brother who died from illness during the war

If you wish to quote or otherwise reference these letters, please provide a clear citation with a link back to this site. If you have any questions - feel free to contact me at ray.a.drake(~at~)gmail.com

Above: Envelope postmarked May 2, 1861 from Galesburg, Illinois