2nd Ohio Infantry CIVIL WAR LETTER from Huntsville, Alabama - GREAT CONTENT

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2nd Ohio Infantry CIVIL WAR LETTER from Huntsville, Alabama - GREAT CONTENT :
$128.51

Civil War Letter

John L. Hebron, 2nd OVI

“John L. Hebron, son of Alexander and Lydia (Giles) Hebron, was born in Steubenville, Ohio, January [or December] 17, 1842, died in the city of his birth, May 25, 1914, and was laid at rest in the family vault in Union Cemetery. He was educated in the public schools of Steubenville, and then became an apprentice to the granite and marble cutting trade. He continued in that line until his enlistment on September 5, 1861, as a bugler in Company G, Second Regiment, Ohio Volunteers. He was engaged with his regiment at the battles of Ivy Mountain, Perryville, Murfreesboro, Stone River, Hoover’s Gap, Chickamauga, Lookout Mountain, Missionary Ridge, and in many engagements and skirmishes. At the battle of Stone River the color bearer of the Thirtieth Regiment, Arkansas Infantry, Confederate, was shot, and the Flag of the regiment was captured by Colonel McCook, who gave it to bugler Hebron to take to the rear, which he did in safety. He was honorably discharged from the service in Columbus, Ohio, October 10, 1864, having been in the service something over three years without receiving the slightest visible physical injury.

After returning from the war, he resumed work at his trade in Steubenville, and became a skilled marble and granite cutter, specializing in monumental work. He opened a marble yard in Steubenville, in the McEldowney building on Market Street, and there he continued in the monumental business for many years. He met with a fair degree of success in his business, and many of the monuments and gravestones seen in Union Cemetery were erected by Mr. Hebron. Prior to his passing, he erected a Hebron family monument in Union Cemetery. About the year 1900 he retired from business, being a great sufferer from varicose veins, a trouble induced by exposure and fatigue while in the army.

Mr. Hebron was a Republican in politics, and served his city as councilman and member of the Board of Education. He was one of the charter members of Webster Post, Grand Army of the Republic, of Steubenville, was affiliated with the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, and was an attendant of St. Paul Protestant Episcopal Church. He was well known in Steubenville, and was highly esteemed as a man of honor and integrity.

On February 19, 1873, Mr. Hebron married, in Wheeling, West Virginia, Martha E. Dalby, born in Steubenville, Ohio, daughter of Joseph and Mary (Huff) Dalby, both families of Washington county, Pennsylvania, and early settlers in Steubenville, where they located as early as the year 1803. Mrs. Hebron survives her husband, a resident of Steubenville, Ohio, her home No. 536 South Fourth street. She is a member of the Methodist Episcopal church. Four children were born to John L. and Martha E. (Dalby) Hebron: 1. Jessie Edgington, who died in Steubenville, Ohio. 2. Victor, a master plumber of Steubenville, Ohio; married Grace Dean. 3. Solon Chase, engaged in the pottery business; married Catherine Grimm, and they have two children, Claud Dean and Beaulah. 4. Sue, married Ralph L. Jones, secretary of La Belle Iron Works; Mr. and Mrs. Jones are the parents of a daughter, Martha A. Mrs. Jones is secretary of the Republican Woman’s Club of Steubenville, Ohio, and an active worker.” [Source:American Biography: A New Cyclopedia, Volume 11, by William Richard Cutter, page 222]

TheRepositoryof Canton, Ohio, of26 May 1914 carried the following cryptic obituary for John under the heading, “He Prepared to Die” — Steubenville, O., May 26. — When John L. Hebron, a prominent Odd Fellow, died here Monday, his grave was dug, his vault built, and the tombstone ready for the date. He had arranged all these in later years. He was 71 years old.

TRANSCRIPTION

Huntsville, Alabama
April 18th [1862]

Dear Mother,

I now sit down to write you a few lines. I wrote a letter on the 13th or 14th. There was a mail came in on the 16th but there was no letter for me. I got a paper. We moved our camp on the 16th from the north side of the city to the south side and we had no more than got our tents up when we got orders to go out on the railroad about 60 miles toward Corinth. We went without tents. They told us that we would have to march about 15 miles and then have a fight with some rebels about 5 thousand strong but when we got off the cars, Col. [Leonard A.] Harris was informed that his regiment would have to stay there and guard the railroad while the rest went on to whip the rebels. But when they got there, they found nary rebel. But our company did. They found an old chap that had been in the southern army and said he would be there yet if he could stand soldiering. He was down at Corinth at the time of the fight there. He said he would not sell the North a pound of cotton for 50 dollars but he would give the South all he had for nothing.We went over and took 36 hams from him.

It appears like we are getting in the South in earnest now. In Kentucky, the negro was well-clothed and well-fed and treated some like [a free person], but as you get farther south, the slave is treated more like a slave. The slaves down here are poorly dressed. Their clothes are made out of flax and look something like [a] coffee sack shirt and all and they are patch upon patch. It is an awful treat for them to get a pair of our old pants. In Kentucky, the slaves all got good clothes made of Kentucky jeans and they had a Sunday suit — most of them — and they had the same to eat as their masters. Down here they get their rations of corn meal or corn. They say they don’t get half enough to eat but the farmers in Kentucky ain’t near so rich as the planters in southern Alabama. The farther south, the worse they get. I don’t know what it will come to when we get to the Gulf of Mexico. They say the rebels are going to make a stand out in the Gulf of Mexico.

They farm altogether different from the way they do in Ohio. They have plows with wooden landsides and they don’t plow the ground the second year for corn or cotton. They mark out between the rows and drop the corn in the marks, then throw the old rows over on it. They plow the corn only one way.

We got back here last night about 10 o’clock. I saw one field where there was 11 plows going.

Well, I don’t know of anything else to write this time. I don’t know when the mail goes out so I will leave the envelope open and if I get a letter before a mail goes out, I will let you know. From your affectionate son, — John L. Hebron

TERMS

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