Tag Archives: Civil War

Guest Post: Breathing the Dust of History

Today we’re pleased to share a guest post from Sara DeLuca, editor of Heavy Marching. During the Civil War, Lute Moseley, a member of Wisconsin’s 22nd Volunteer Infantry, wrote detailed missives to his family in Beloit about his wartime experiences. These 125 letters, published for the first time in Heavy Marching, provide a uniquely candid and vivid view of this tumultuous period in US history. In the early 2000s, Esther Moseley enlisted the help of Sara DeLuca, a Wisconsin-based writer, to transcribe, annotate, and edit the letters written by her husband’s grandfather. Over the past few years, Sara has worked on the book, with the permission of Moseley’s descendants; the resulting volume was published June 27, 2023, with a foreword by Robert Lucius Moseley. Today, Sara shares an essay and poem she wrote about this experience. 

The pandemic that altered so many lives around the globe, beginning in 2020 and continuing for longer than we ever expected, held me close to home, searching for creative work that would fill my days. I remembered the box of Civil War letters that had been shared with me by a friend named Esther Moseley, when we were both living near Atlanta, Georgia. The letters had been written by her husband’s grandfather, Lucius Moseley, during his service with the 22nd Wisconsin Volunteer Regiment, 1862–65. Esther had asked me to help her transcribe and edit the letters for possible publication. Unfortunately, she died soon after we began our collaboration and I abandoned the project for nearly fifteen years. When I moved back to Wisconsin, the letters moved with me.

Early in 2021, after I had cleaned out all my closets and run out of productive household tasks, I contacted Esther Moseley’s family and received permission to continue working with their ancestor’s writings. Transcribing, curating, researching, annotating, editing, editing, editing, absorbed my time for more than two years. Early in the process I submitted a proposal and sample pages to the University of Wisconsin Press; an encouraging response helped keep me motivated.

My working title for the book was Ever Dear Home, a salutation that Lucius (“Lute”) Moseley often used when addressing his beloved family in Beloit, Wisconsin. Ultimately, the title was changed to Heavy Marching: The Civil War Letters of Lute Moseley, 22nd Wisconsin. The 22nd Wisconsin certainly did some heavy marching—2,400 miles on foot, much of that through extremely difficult terrain and challenging conditions, described in startling detail by the young soldier.

As editor of this remarkable first-person history, I did some heavy marching too, though most of that was accomplished in the safety and comfort of my own dear home. This poem describes my journey, which has been more rewarding than words can express. 

Ever Dear Home . . .						
		
That is how my young soldier begins so many Civil War letters
to his father, mother, brother, grandmother, back home in Beloit, Wisconsin.
I have become that grandmother, loving, hoping, 
praying for Lucius Moseley to survive the long exhausting marches,
battles at Thompson’s Station, Stones River, Peach Tree Creek, 
the Siege of Atlanta, fighting and foraging across Georgia and the Carolinas,
near starvation in Richmond’s Libby Prison, torments from dysentery, scurvy,
from rats and flies and fleas, snipers and bushwhackers.
From the stench of death.

Should God allow me to live, he writes, I will come home
and do my best to make your old age happy.
I want to know this battle-hardened boy who is marching into manhood, 
who can shoot rebel soldiers, so like himself, take their weapons, bury the bodies
and celebrate, yet burn with remorse for stealing hay from an emaciated mule
so he can make himself a bed. I need to bring him back, unscarred. I will listen
intently, learn what he has to teach me. This is kinship with another soul,
across time and space.

I suffer from exquisite maladies. I am choking on the dust of history, 
burning with archive fever.  I am tossing sleeplessly, dreaming fitfully, 
excavating, reanimating a long-dead body, searching for a pulse, finding
only a portion of his life, while feeling like a thief, knowing
that too much belongs to time
and I can never make him whole.

Book Club Discussion Guide – Heavy Marching: The Civil War Letters of Lute Moseley, 22nd Wisconsin

During the Civil War, Lute Moseley, a member of Wisconsin’s 22nd Volunteer Infantry, wrote detailed missives to his family in Beloit about his wartime experiences. Frank and forthright, he was remarkably articulate, insightful, and thoughtful, whether describing mundane activities or the nearly unfathomable death of President Lincoln. These 125 letters, published for the first time in the forthcoming book Heavy Marching, provide a uniquely candid and vivid view of this tumultuous period in US history.

In the early 2000s, Esther Moseley enlisted the help of Sara DeLuca, a Wisconsin-based writer, to transcribe, annotate, and edit the letters written by her husband’s grandfather. Over the past few years, Sara has worked on the book, with the permission of Moseley’s descendants; the resulting volume will be published June 27, 2023, with a foreword by Robert Lucius Moseley. Sara has developed the following discussion guide for book clubs who wish to read and discuss the collection.

  • What were the primary motivations for Lute Moseley and fellow soldiers to enlist in military service during the Civil War? How do these motivations compare and contrast with military enlistments today?
  • What do the tone and content of Lute’s letters reveal about his relationship with his mother and father? And with his younger brother?
  • How do the letters reveal Lute’s ethics and values? Religious beliefs?
  • Lute’s feelings about the African Americans he encounters are candidly expressed in several letters. How do these attitudes evolve throughout his three years of experience in the war? What signs do you see that might illustrate a growing understanding and compassion?
  • In many letters, Lute describes strong bonds and camaraderie among fellow soldiers, as well as feelings of irritation and petty jealousies. He also judges the behavior of his comrades and superior officers, sometimes with high praise, sometimes with harsh criticism. What do these judgments say about Lute’s own character and personality?
  • How did the incompetence and bitter conflicts between officers of the Wisconsin 22nd Volunteer Regiment impact the enlisted men? Can you think of examples from your own experience in the workplace or other situations where inadequate leadership affected morale and performance of the entire organization?
  • How might the letters of a Civil War soldier writing to his mother and father differ from those that were written to wives? Or letters written for the purpose of publication? How do you think they might differ from reports by military officers and public officials?
  • Despite being only nineteen at the time of his enlistment, Lute displays an ability for keen observation, vivid description, and honest reflection in his letters. What aspects of his education and background might contribute to such expressive writing?
  • Lute describes a scene of fraternization—even friendliness—with the “Johnny Rebs.” Yet in most accounts they are evil enemies to be destroyed, and he celebrates that destruction. How would a soldier learn to manage such contradictory experiences and emotions?
  • When Lute describes stealing hay from a horse to make himself a bed, he describes deep guilt. Yet he has witnessed and participated in so much human suffering. Does this seem like a strange reaction? Can you recall a time when a lesser incident—the “last straw”—has been the one to bring you down?
  • In April 1963 Lute writes, “I have written twice since I got back to America.” The Confederate states have become a foreign country. Lute’s impressions of “Dixie” range from harsh to amusing. What are some of the stereotypes about the North and South that still exist today?
  • What did you learn from Lute Moseley’s letters that you found most surprising? Revealing? Disturbing?
  • Can you draw comparisons or contrasts between the deep divisions that led to the Civil War with the current political environment? Do you feel optimistic about the prospects of healing these divisions and of finding common ground that will enable us to solve the economic, social, and environmental challenges facing our nation today?

A Mysterious Life and Calling

Preacher, teacher, and postmistress, Charlotte Levy Riley was born into slavery but became a popular evangelist after emancipation

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A MYSTERIOUS LIFE AND CALLING
From Slavery to Ministry in South Carolina  

Reverend Mrs. Charlotte S. Riley
Edited with an introduction by Crystal J. Lucky; Foreword by Joycelyn K. Moody

University of Wisconsin Press   January 2016

Lucky-Crystal-2015-c

    Professor Crystal J. Lucky

Crystal Lucky lived up to her name when she found a forgotten autobiography of a former slave in the library archives at Wilberforce University in Ohio. Lucky, an associate professor of English and the director of the Africana Studies Program at Villanova University in Philadelphia, is also an ordained elder, church official, and pastor’s wife. So, she was thrilled and astonished to discover the unknown memoir of an African American woman who was a licensed minister and popular preacher in the Carolinas after emancipation from slavery.

Reverend Mrs. Charlotte Levy Riley had called her book, “A Mysterious Life and Calling.” As Lucky began to read it, she knew that she had found something—and someone—extraordinary. Lucky has now published Riley’s memoir with the University of Wisconsin Press, providing an introduction and notes on events, society, and religious practice in the periods before, during, and after the Civil War and Reconstruction, and placing Riley’s story in the context of other spiritual autobiographies and slave narratives.

“[Crystal] Lucky has truly uncovered a gem with this autobiography of Charlotte S. Riley, a former slave who became a reverend in the African Methodist Episcopal church after emancipation. . . . An important, informative achievement.”—Publishers Weekly

Born into slavery in 1839 in Charleston, South Carolina, young Charlotte Levy was taught to read, write, and sew despite laws forbidding black literacy. Raised a Presbyterian, she wrote of her conversion at age fourteen to the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) church, embracing its ecstatic worship and led by her own spiritual visions.

Riley’s memoir is a revelation on many counts, including life in urban Charleston before and after emancipation, her work as a preacher at multiracial revivals, the rise of African American civil servants in the Reconstruction era, and her education and development as the only woman preacher in South Carolina. She was a licensed female minister in a patriarchal church, a feat rarely achieved at that time by women anywhere in the country, whether black or white. She also became a teacher of newly emancipated black people and their children, and postmistress of Lincolnville, an all-black incorporated town outside of Charleston where she owned a home and spent most of her adult life.

An astounding find! Riley’s autobiography shifts and revises what we thought we knew about black autobiography, antebellum autobiography, memoirs of spiritual awakening, narratives of slavery, and the history of South Carolina.” —Joycelyn Moody, University of Texas at San Antonio

Riley published her memoir privately in the early twentieth century, but as of yet Lucky has not discovered the year of its publication. “What is clear,” Lucky says, “is that the events span the nineteenth century and the earliest years of the twentieth. Charlotte was born to enslaved parents, John and Sarah Levy, in Charleston on August 26, 1839.”

“As an enslaved girl in one of the busiest cities in the antebellum South, young Charlotte was spared some of the physical hardships of chattel slavery. She even received a modest education at a school run by a local widow, where she learned to read, write, sew, and do basic math. Her mother died when she was very young, so an uncle and a grandmother helped to raise her. Eventually, she began to live with and serve her grandmother’s white mistress, which closely aligned her with affluent, white Charlestonians. At the close of the Civil War, Charlotte married a free black architect, was shortly thereafter abandoned by her husband, began to worship and work with the A.M.E. Church, taught in a church-sponsored school, and received her local preacher’s license in 1871, just one year after African American men obtained the right to vote. She really is quite remarkable.”—Crystal Lucky

As the Reverend Charlotte S. Riley, the newly freed woman worked tirelessly to position African American men, women, and children to benefit economically, educationally, and spiritually from the vast changes that were happening throughout the United States as a result of Emancipation. She taught basic literacy skills and Bible classes to children and adults and traveled hundreds of miles to preach, despite debilitating health problems. In her travels, she also began to assist African American communities and mentor leaders in resisting the backlash of racial violence and the rise of Jim Crow laws. She took a role in organizing sharecroppers, assisting the newly formed Colored National Labor Union, and aiding the Honorable Robert Brown Elliott, the first African American commanding general of the South Carolina National Guard.

Although a memoir like Riley’s is quite rare, Lucky points out, “The power of narrative was important for women, whose physical presence was consistently scrutinized. Riley was aware of her tenuous public position; she repeatedly refers to herself in her autobiography as a ‘woman preacher’ rather than as a preacher or minister.” For some, her existence posed problems. “She faced skepticism from whites and blacks about whether a ‘real woman’ could be a preacher and, in turn, whether a preacher could really be a woman.”

A few accounts by nineteenth-century black preaching women in the northern states are known, but this is the first discovery of such a memoir written in the American South. Herman Beaver, professor at the University of Pennsylvania, notes, “This edition will be in people’s hands for a very long time. A Mysterious Life and Calling is a valuable primary source that can be referenced and studied in so many literary and cultural contexts.”

A Mysterious Life and Calling: From Slavery to Ministry in South Carolina by the Reverend Charlotte S. Riley will be published in January 2016 by the University of Wisconsin Press and can be ordered from local and online booksellers, or requested from libraries. Publicity contact: publicity@uwpress.wisc.edu