|
|
Love and Valor Book
Description Through amazing good fortune and perseverance, Charles F. Larimer, great great grandson of Jacob Ritner and his wife Emeline, tracked down family correspondence from the Civil War era. Starting with typed copies of Jacob's letters, initially transcribed in the 1930s by Larimer's great aunt, Larimer eventually found the original copies of Jacob's war-time letters. Along the way Larimer stumbled across another set of family correspondence, before, during, and after the war. Unfortunately those excluded Emeline's letters. Very late in the process of creating this book, Larimer found a third set of letters, those of Emeline, which may be the most unique contribution to this war-time novel. Captain Jacob B. Ritner: 1st Iowa Infantry, 25th Iowa Infantry, 15th Army Corps, Army of the Tennessee
Wilson's
Creek, Chickasaw Bayou, Arkansas Post, Grant's Canal, Vicksburg, Lookout
Mountain, Chattanooga, Ringgold, Resaca, Dallas, Battle of Atlanta, Ezra
Church, Jonesborough, Sherman's March to the Sea, Occupation of Savannah,
Burning of Columbia, Bentonville, Grand Review In Washington. |
|
|
Smithsonian Civil War E-Mail Newsletter - October 2001 Featured on Georgia Public Television "Georgia's Civil War" - September 2002 Pulitzer Prize Winner Studs Terkel - May 2001 Chicago Tribune and Other Newspapers - August 2000 Universities and Colleges: University of Maine - Civil War Literature Course - 2001 Hillsdale College in Hillsdale, MI - Course on History of the American Family - 2002 University of Alaska Southeast - Ketchican Campus - Civil War course - 2004 Gone With The Wind Tours Featured source document for "Daughters of the Union" by Professor Nina Silber, published by Harvard University Press, May 2005
|
||
|
"For history buffs, Civil War devotees, Americana enthusiasts, or even those interested in a good old-fashioned love story, this is a dream come true. The letters are superb, extraordinary ... among the best of their kind I have ever seen …" --Philip R. Hinderberger, Historian, 17th Missouri Infantry USA, Major USMCR (Ret.) "As a participant in D-Day, a student of the Civil War, and a resident of rural America, I found Jacob and Emeline's letters to be a tremendously moving and literate story of the Civil War that will touch all those who read it. Jacob's stunned emotions while walking through battlefields were similar to all front line men. His dramatic writing of the war, coupled with Emeline's trials of keeping the farm, raising four children, and dealing with family suffering, provide an emotional view of life back home that sets this book apart from other Civil War books. A must-read for both Civil War fans and general readers." --Ken Russell, Paratrooper, 82nd Airborne, featured in D-Day, The Climactic Battle of World War II; Americans at War; Citizen Soldiers; and The Victors: Eisenhower and His Boys, all by Stephen Ambrose; and Voices of D-Day by Ronald J. Drez "Captain Jacob Ritner's letters provide a fresh look at General W. T. Sherman's campaign through Georgia and the Carolinas, including the occupation of Savannah. His vivid descriptions include the Pulaski Monument, `the finest thing I ever saw,' church edifices `said to be the finest in the United States,' and palmettos, `the greatest curiosity I ever saw.' He hated fresh oysters (`Ugh! The nasty things!') but enjoyed a visit to Bonaventure Cemetery, `one of the most picturesque places I was ever in … the final resting place of fallen greatness.' The replies of Jacob's wife Emeline give a rare feminine view of the war and home front, making this both a valuable Civil War reference, and a compelling love story." --Margaret Wayt DeBolt, author of Savannah Spectres and Other Strange Tales "Richly told, an impressive work of research that all Americans can cherish as part of their national family inheritance. This tale of letters provides an intimate glimpse into our past." --John Pellicano, Historian, author of Conquer or Die; The 39th New York Volunteer Infantry: Garibaldi Guard. A Military History. |
||
|
December 12, 1862 Dear Jake, Where are you tonight, and what are you doing? Oh I would so like to know. I have got the blues most horribly tonight and the wind is blowing a perfect streak. Your old canteen is bumping & banging against the wall in the porch, trying to keep time with the howling of the wind, and the dismal patter of the rain. Oh how gloomy everything seems tonight! How I wish you were with us to chase away the melancholys, but where are you tonight and what are you doing . . Farewell dear, Your own Em Nov. 20th, 1864 Dear Husband, "I must tell you what a big taking down I got today at church. I had my hat done over in the winter style and wore it to church today for the first time, and old Mrs. Burnett just raked me right before the people after meeting was over because I wore an "old ugly hat." She was so mean. She looked as though she could have stomped me with her feet. She said when people talked of soldier's wives dressing, she always held me up as an exception, but now I was as bad as any of them. Everybody that gets a new hat has to take a thrashing from her and so my time came today. I haven't got over it yet, but I don't intend to lay it by for her." Yours ever, Em Near Acworth, Georgia June 7, 1864 My Dear Wife, I often lie awake at night looking at the moon and stars and thinking that they are the same moon and stars that shine on you. And then I think that maybe you are sitting in the door at the same time and looking at the same objects, or perhaps the same stars I am looking at are shining through the window into your nice room where you are sleeping in your snug bed, and then I feel very near to you and love you, Oh! so much! And then I think again that however this may be, there is one thing certain, we have the same kind Providence to watch over and protect us both, and the same Heavenly Father to call upon for help in time of need. I feel very grateful that I have a dear wife and kind friends at home who remember me in their prayers. Your affectionate Husband, J.B. Ritner
The
following piece was written July 7, 1864, during the Atlanta campaign, from
the hospital on Lookout Mountain near Chattanooga. My Dear Wife, This is a most horrible war, is it not, dear, to take me away from you for so long a time and to make it necessary to endure such dangers and labors as we both have felt on account of it. But you must not think that I regret that I entered the army, or that I begrudge to my country for a moment all that I have done and suffered in trying to serve her. I have never felt so for a moment. No, my dear, if only through this baptism of blood, our nation, freed and purified from the blighting curse of slavery, shall lift her radiant forehead from the dust, and crowned with the wisdom of freedom go on her glorious way rejoicing. I shall count my past suffering and shattered health only as the small dust in the balance compared with the priceless blessings of peace, freedom, and national unity, which they may have contributed however slightly to purchase. Only to have contributed something, however little, for the peace, something for the glory, something for the permanence of those beautiful and bright institutions which are the pride of the past and the hope of the future-will be a joy through life and a consolation in death. Your own, Jake
|
||
|
The Smithsonian - featured book of the Smithsonian Civil War Book Club - October 2001 BOOK REVIEW – Love and Valor, The Intimate Civil War Letters Between Captain Jacob and Emeline Ritner Edited by Charles F. Larimer The Smithsonian Associates Civil War E-Mail Newsletter, Volume 4, Number 5
We Americans have just experienced the worst disaster that has ever struck our country. How can we put out another newsletter, review yet another Civil War book, and care what people did almost 150 years ago? We weren’t going to. But once we started, we realized that looking at history helps us to understand what’s happening today. Love and Valor is a book of Civil War letters between husband Jacob Ritner and his wife Emeline, discovered and further researched by their great-great grandson, Charles Larimer. Jacob was a captain in the 25th Iowa Infantry, and Larimer has done an admirable job collecting these letters, providing commentary notes about the Iowa Infantry, and giving a historical context. It is in that context that we recognize a few differences, but mostly the similarities between 1861 and 2001. Those Americans were involved in a war against a threat to freedom, the outcome of which was extremely uncertain. Jacob’s letters, as today’s soldiers’ e-mails might, dealt with politics, children, love, and thoughts of home. They know they were, as we soon may be, sacrificing for a just cause. Both sides knew they would win. But, they did not know at what cost. Unlike today, Jacob thought it would be a short war; we think this war will be a long one. Jacob’s daily routine consisted of foraging, drills, and marching. Today’s soldiers’ duties involve telecommunications, aerodynamics, and nuclear physics. Jacob was paid about $15 per month; our soldiers earn about $700. Of course, unlike Jacob’s unit, today’s soldiers won‘t pick their officers by voting on who could shout, “Whiskey for six!” the loudest. Every letter shows us Jacob’s and Emeline’s naïvete, their sentimentality, and their mundane ailments and complaints. It’s easy to dismiss their concerns because we know who won. We don’t have that advantage today. Through this book, we see one thing clearly, one thing which we share across these many generations. As Jacob writes from his heart, he says we pray our sons (and today, our daughters) will never have to be soldiers. We are drawn to this book and these letters because it is by and about people who were just as naïve, mundane and sentimental as we are today. In spite of it, they overcame and thrived after the worst disaster that ever struck their country. They were just like us. Smithsonian Review by Susan Dennis, October 2001 http://www.civilwarstudies.org/features/article.htm The Book Reader LOVE AND VALOR. Edited by Charles F. Larimer, Sigourney Press, paper, $19.95. Intimate Civil War Letters Between Captain Jacob and Emeline Ritner. Absorbing look at both life on the front lines and life at home on the farm during our nation's brutal home-turfbattle. These letters are by an Iowa farmer and his wife while he fought the whole war, start to finish, serving under both Grant and Sherman before they became celebrities. Ritner's letters read both journalistic and romantic and reveal an articulate man filled with enthusiasm for emancipation and a struggling America. His wife's letters shimmer with news from home, the farm, the kids. The couple's great great grandson gathered these missives and organized them to document the daily lives of two swept up in war time. Ritner joined the 1st Iowa Infantry in May of 1861 and reupped, so that his reports cover battles in Missouri and south along the big river [Vicksburg], the Chattanooga campaign, the Battle of Atlanta, Savannah and the cotton fires that burned Columbia. Ritner writes of the natural rhythm of battle. "We talk friendly all night and shoot at each other all day." In almost diary fashion, he documents battle group sizes and supplies, supper mates, the woods they pass, wounds and treatment, contact with civilians, pay day. Then inquiries about the children, the livestock and crops. Both get poetic and passionate about the mission, the awful time apart, the day they'll be together. It's difficult to imagine a more meaningful correspondence between man and wife. Or a more vivid picture of the war and its toll. Almost scholarly, historically valuable, intimately rewarding. Book Reader review by Jay Bael, Spring/Summer 2000 Edition The Book Reader 245 Mt. Hermon Road #256 |
