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CIVIL WAR HISTORY / AMERICAN STUDIES
“Not many collections of wartime letters between spouses are in print, and
this collection builds on other Civil War primary materials in an important
way: the reader is able to get simultaneous reports on the scene at home,
in the Army camp, and in the field.”
—Suzanne Bunkers, editor of
The Diary of
Caroline Seabury, 1854–1863
In 2002, Judy Cook discovered a packet of letters written by her great-great-
grandparents, Gilbert and Esther Claflin, during the American Civil War. An
unexpected bounty, these letters from 1862–63 offer visceral witness to the war,
recounting the trials of a family separated. Gilbert, an articulate and cheerful
forty-year-old farmer, was drafted into the Union Army and served in the Thirty-
Fourth Wisconsin Infantry garrisoned in western Kentucky along the Mississippi.
Esther had married Gilbert when she was fifteen; now a woman with two teenage
sons, she ran the family farm near Oconomowoc, Wisconsin, in Gilbert’s absence.
In his letters, Gilbert writes about food, hygiene, rampant desertions by drafted
men, rebel guerrilla raids, and pastimes in the daily life of a soldier. His com-
ments on interactions with Confederate prisoners and ex-slaves before and after
the Emancipation Proclamation reveal his personal views on monumental events.
Esther shares in her letters the challenges of maintaining the farm, accounts of
their boys Elton and Price, concerns about finances and health, and news of their
community, illuminating aspects of the wartime North often overlooked in Civil
War histories.
Judy Cook has made the letters accessible to a wider audience by providing
historical context with notes and appendixes. The volume includes a foreword by
Civil War historian Keith S. Bohannon.
Gilbert Elton Claflin
(1822–79) was born in Sandisfield, Massachusetts.
Esther Patience Colby Claflin
(1830–1900) was born in LeRoy, Ohio, and grew
up in western New York State. In 1884, each moved to Wisconsin.
Judy Cook
tours universities and historical societies in the United States and United King-
dom, performing multimedia presentations based on the Claflin letters and
songs of the Civil War era.
DECEMBER
LC: 2013010467 E
320 PP. 6 × 9 17 B/W ILLUS.
E-BOOK $15.95 T ISBN 978-0-299-29483-0
• VISIT JUDYCOOK.NET FOR INFORMATION
ABOUT RECORDINGS AND UPCOMING
PERFORMANCES
“I have read many Civil War era
diaries and letter collections, but
this is the most interesting and
touching.”
—Thomas D. Mackie,
director of the Abraham Lincoln Library
and Museum
PUBLISHED DECEMBER 2012
LC: 2012015329 E 358 PP. 6 × 9
34 B/W PHOTOS, 4 MAPS
E-BOOK $15.95 T ISBN 978-0-299-29123-5
Of re l at ed int e re s t
Guy C. Taylor; Edited by Kevin Alderson
and Patsy Alderson; Introduction by
Kathryn Shively Meier
A moving collection of newly discovered
letters that captures the range of emotions
and experiences of the American Civil War.
