A Vermont Cavalryman in War & Love:
The Civil War Letters of Major General William Wells and Anna Richardson
Edited by Elliott W. Hoffman
(February/March 2009 Civil War News)

Illustrated, maps, footnotes, bibliography index, 543 pp., 2007. Schroeder Publications, 131 Tanglewood Dr., Lynchburg, VA 24502, $45 plus shipping.

Reviewer: Michael Russert
Michael Russert, a member of the North Shore Round Table of Long Island and the Company of Military Historians, has a MALS plus 60 hours in American Studies. He is Coordinator of The New York State Veteran Oral History Program.

Review:
Civil War scholarship owes two debts of gratitude to Elliott Hoffman. While researching in the archives of the University of Vermont, he initially discovered a 400-page manuscript written by Horace Ide, a veteran of Co. D, 1st Vermont Cavalry Regiment, completed in 1872, but never published. This was then published as History of the First Vermont Cavalry Volunteers in the War of the Rebellion (2000) as part of Butternut & Blue’s Army of the Potomac series.

The second discovery was the correspondence of Bvt. Maj. Gen. William Wells who served in the ranks of the 1st Vermont Cavalry. The transcription and editing of this large collection led to the book under consideration here.

William Wells, born in 1837, was part of a close-knit family of six brothers and a sister. Four of the brothers served in the war and all survived. Wells enlisted in the 1st Vermont Cavalry in 1861 and, according to the editor, he had the distinction of being one of eight men who rose from private to brevet major general during the Civil War.

Wells was captured by Mosby’s raiders on March 17, 1863, near Herndon, Va., and was held as a prisoner for seven weeks. In addition he received the Medal of Honor for his actions on South Cavalry Field at Gettysburg on July 3, 1863. Toward the end of the war Wells led a cavalry brigade under Custer.

The 1st Vermont was equally distinguished. It was the first cavalry unit raised in New England. Organized in the fall of 1861 it served in the Eastern Theater, initially with Banks and Pope, then in the ranks of the Army of the Potomac.

William Fox’s Regimental Losses of the American Civil War lists this regiment at 50th of 250 Union cavalry regiments in combat deaths. The Green Mountain regiment performed with great distinction during Grant’s Overland Campaign and during the 1864 Valley Campaign.

During the war the Vermonters were involved in 73 engagements capturing 39 pieces of artillery, three flags, and approximately 1,000 prisoners.

A Cavalryman in War & Love is a fascinating collection of approximately 400 letters. The majority of them were an exchange of correspondence between Wells and his family members until mid-1863 when he initiated an exchange with 18-year-old Anna Richardson, a classmate of his sister. According to Hoffman, the letters include “all of William’s letters written from the army,” all of Anna’s letters to him, surviving letters from his parents and siblings, along with representative letters from fellow soldiers and friends.

The letters provide a glimpse into life in a cavalry unit along with concerns about the home front. They also chronicle the evolving relationship between William and Anna, whom he married after the war. The correspondence serves to compare and contrast two very different worlds — that of a soldier and that of a teenage schoolgirl.

A prolific letter writer, Wells explored a multitude of topics from grooming and feeding horses and daily camp life, to a regiment’s workings and politics viewed from the different perspectives as Wells advanced through various levels of command.

Wells also rendered candid insight into the character of those with whom he served —Kilpatrick, Grant, Farnsworth, James Wilson and Custer. He shared his feelings on the battlefield to Anna; for example, “When on raid we get so dreddfully frightened that we forget all we see or hear…”

And, he expressed his concerns for things happening around him and about life at home in Vermont. The editor allows Wells to speak for himself by not correcting the spellings or grammar of the letters.

A Cavalryman in War & Love is highly recommended for its insight into the operations of a cavalry unit. The editor provides commentary between letters, when necessary, along with ample footnotes concerning material in the letters. More than 50 photographs and five maps highlighting 1st Vermont operations also accompany the text.

This book and Ide’s unit history are both important primary sources for use by Civil War enthusiasts. A Cavalryman in War & Love is not only a study of cavalry life, but it simultaneously furnishes a personal view into a blossoming love affair during the Victorian era.