In 2002, Judy Cook discovered a packet of letters written by her
great-great-grandparents, Gilbert and Esther Claflin, during the
American Civil War. An unexpected bounty, these letters from 1862-63
offer visceral witness to the war, recounting the trials of a family
separated. Gilbert, an articulate and cheerful forty-year-old farmer,
was drafted into the Union Army and served in the Thirty-Fourth
Wisconsin Infantry garrisoned in western Kentucky along the Mississippi.
Esther had married Gilbert when she was fifteen; now a woman with two
teenage sons, she ran the family farm near Oconomowoc, Wisconsin, in
Gilbert's absence. In his letters, Gilbert writes about food, hygiene,
rampant desertions by drafted men, rebel guerrilla raids, and pastimes
in the daily life of a soldier. His comments on interactions with
Confederate prisoners and ex-slaves before and after the Emancipation
Proclamation reveal his personal views on monumental events. Esther
shares in her letters the challenges and joys of maintaining the farm,
accounts of their boys Elton and Price, concerns about finances and
health, and news of their local community and extended family. Esther's
experiences provide insight into family, farm, and village life in the
wartime North, an often overlooked aspect of Civil War history. Judy
Cook has made the letters accessible to a wider audience by providing
historical context with notes and appendixes. The volume includes a
foreword by Civil War historian Keith S. Bohannon.
