Bill Lutz, Edd Hale, Nancy Hale, Carole Young, Carleton Young
One of the cross-written letters found in Young’s attic.
covered porch or walkway. Lutz helped fill in other details because he
recognized the names of generals and battles. However, there were still
moments when everyone struggled to understand a passage.
“There were lots of times when the whole group stared at a letter and
mumbled to ourselves for several minutes,” Young says.
It took two years to go through all 250 letters and then the group
read them all a second time to fill in the gaps. They finally finished
the transcription in 2008 but the group also conducted research to
discover who the letter writers were and what happened to them.
Two brothers, Henry and Francis Martin, from
Williamstown, Vermont, were the authors. Henry
Martin wrote most of the letters and joined the
4th Vermont Infantry at the start of the Civil War
in 1861. His unit was part of the Vermont Brigade,
which Hale says was an excellent group of soldiers.
“They stood and fought in the worst conditions,”
he says. “They didn’t retreat.”
Henry Martin fought in a number of different
battles in the eastern theater of the Civil War,
including Antietam, Chancellorsville, Fredericksburg
and Gettysburg. He was wounded several times and
eventually advanced to the rank of lieutenant. He
died after being shot in the chest during the Battle of
the Wilderness in northern Virginia in May 1864.
His brother, Francis, joined the Union army as a
private in 1863. Hale says that at the time, nobody
thought Francis Martin would be a good soldier
because he frequently suffered from depression
and was often very ill. He was also very pious and
published newspaper articles about his experiences
during the Civil War. Bill Lutz says none of Francis’
friends or relatives thought he would survive in the
Union army.
“Nobody thought he could go and be a soldier,”
Lutz says. “But all of a sudden he just sprouted. He wrote home about
how healthy he felt.”
Francis Martin was wounded at the Battle of Cedar Creek in
northern Virginia in October 1864. He was trying to help another
wounded soldier when a bullet hit him just above the ankle. His left
foot was amputated but part of the bone was exposed so doctors had
to operate again. Francis was discharged and went home to the family
farm, which produced willow for baskets, wagons and carriages.
The brothers described battles in a very straightforward manner to
each other, but were more subtle when writing to their parents, Hale
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