Remnants

Work was an absolute joy today – I was able to revel in some tangible Civil War history. I’ve been working on a collection dating from the Civil War, and the more I read and corrected of the finding aid, the more I knew I had to have an excuse to pull the collection and look at it myself.

It’s a collection of letters written and received by Henry Baxter (Sept. 8, 1821 - Dec. 30, 1873), born in New York but lived most of his life in Jonesville, Michigan. It is a collection of love letters written to his wife from the battle field. I probably read only a fourth of the letters, and was completely swept away. The letters were mostly constructed the same way; he opens by stating his desire to be home with his wife and children, then describes the weather, and then he gets into the good stuff. In one letter he explained why he was heeding the call of duty and fighting in a war when he would rather be home to care for his family. He refers to his country as a woman embodying duty, who looks him straight in the eye "and should not be neglected." In some letters he expresses his love for his wife, and those are my favorites. They had three children, Jenny, Harry and Carrie. I don't know his wife's name - he only refers to her as "my dearest wife" or "my dearest." He dreams about her.

The letters he writes concerning his children are equally moving. In every letter he is concerned about their health, and it seems like they always have a new problem - the measles, a fever, etc. He always writes he wishes he could be there to take care of them, to protect them and nurse them to health.

His letters rarely mention the war and his time in battle. He never mentions his own illnesses or any kind of problem. His letters are always loving, patriotic and comforting. His wife must have loved them.

So after I completely indulged in reading the letters, I went back to the finding aid I was working on. For all of the letters he writes concerning his children, his love letters, or any of his personal letters, the aid simply had: "Family matters" or one even said, as if with an impatient sigh, "More family talk." So coldly clinical. Only the important dates and places are mentioned in the finding aid. I wanted to erase these descriptions and write: "Harry has the measles, Henry wishes he were home, the sun is shining like a bright Spring morning, and he wrote of his longing desire to see and touch his wife, wishing he could "clasp [her] to [his] loving heart." This man was clearly a passionate husband and loyal patriot. One of the letters mentions being "presented a sword as a sign of respect and esteem from [his] fellow officers." He fought in Gettysburg and was a large part of the Union's success that day. He rose to the rank of general. He was wounded four times throughout the war.

The collection includes a photograph of him, which apparently belonged to one of Henry's grandsons, or so it would appear from the writing on the back. It said something like: "This is a photograph of my grandfather." Later Baxter served as an ambassador to Honduras (how? why? Did he even speak Spanish?!) and took his son, Harry, with him. But Henry died a few years later from an illness he likely contracted while in South America.

How much time did he spend with his wife throughout their married years? Maybe five or ten? And yet he loved her so deeply. His letters were intimate to the point I felt voyeuristic reading them.

I couldn't help but wonder if, some one hundred and forty years from now, Trevor's letters to me from the mission field will be sitting on the cold shelves of a library vault, unread, and only preserved because he mentions important dates or events.

The art historian/theorist Michael Ann Holly wrote that of all the academic disciplines, historians are the saddest lot. We are constantly trying to recreate a past from the fragments left behind, constantly mourning for information and history lost. She believes you must be masochistic on some level to be a historian, and art historians suffer the most. I felt that way today reading Henry Baxter's letters, wishing I could have traveled like the letter itself, as part of the paper, from the minute it was purchased, to when Henry's pen pressed ink on it on a battle field, to the time it reached his family hundreds of miles away.

The essence of human beings are all the same. Throughout history, time and space. Essentially we are alike. Want the same things, capable of love and compassion, and in need of connections between each other. If only that was understood and championed throughout the world. Wars, hatred and politics would melt away, the way Henry Baxter's military and historic achievements melted away for me when reading his personal letters. His heroics at Gettysburg didn't matter nearly as much as his caring compassion for his family. And in the end, really, it's his letters that are preserved and kept. While his worldly achievements are recorded in history books, of his actual being it is only expressions of love that remain as tangible evidence of his life.