Civil War diary offers insight into one soldier’s life

Every historian might be a bit of a voyeur — or snoop! We like to examine other people’s letters. Reading an honest and well-written memoir can be fun as well as revelatory. We listen enthusiastically to oral history interviews. But nothing excites the historical researcher more than a diary.

Letters often contain more information than a diary entry, but a diary is a special record of a subject’s life. While letters might be written well after an occurrence, diary entries are usually immediate — often written within hours of an event.

It takes close reading sometimes to decide if the diarist is being less than candid, or perhaps self-congratulatory. Even with these limitations and challenges, diaries at their best take readers on journeys through the past.

Lt. Orville Gillet, a Union soldier from Michigan who was stationed in Arkansas during part of the Civil War, kept a diary with almost continuous, though brief, daily entries. Many Union army officers, recognizing the significance of the war they were fighting, began recording their experiences in journals. Fortunately, the Gillet diary — held by the Arkansas State Archives — was published in the Arkansas Historical Quarterly in 1958.

Gillet began his service as a member of the Third Michigan Cavalry, rising to sergeant before accepting a lieutenancy in the Third Arkansas Cavalry in October 1864. He began keeping a diary on May 14, 1864, covering the final year of the war. His unit was transferred to Arkansas in May 1864.

He worked as a regimental quartermaster, supervising and distributing munitions, equipment and other supplies. His work alternated between long days of frenzied effort followed by quiet times when he could catch up on Army paperwork.

Gillet was responsible for overseeing a vast amount of military supplies ranging from cartridges to sabers. On Aug. 29, 1864, he received 59,000 cartridges shipped from Little Rock by railroad, immediately transferring them to a steamboat for rapid shipment to “Desark.”

On another occasion, Gillet issued 75 saddles for a new cavalry company. His work was complicated by rebel sabotage of the railroad and telegraph lines between DeValls Bluff and Little Rock.

Gillet includes many references to challenges faced by the Yankee cavalrymen. On the first day the Third Michigan arrived in Arkansas, two of “the boys” drowned while swimming in the White River while their steamboat lay at anchor.

I was surprised at the number of drownings Gillet recorded over the next year or so. Several occurred while soldiers were fording waterways. In April 1865, two men drowned while “crossing Illinoys bayou” near modern Russellville. A July 4 celebration at DeValls Bluff in 1864 got out of hand, with soldiers breaking into a warehouse and stealing 12 barrels of beer. Two men drowned when they filled their canteens with beer and tried to swim across the White River.

Not all of Gillet’s entries dealt with challenges. He was an enthusiastic fisherman and was happy to record catching a 30-pound catfish at night near DeValls Bluff. He also enjoyed listening to musical programs put on by the regimental band.

Like every other soldier stationed away from home during a protracted war, Gillet eagerly awaited the daily mail call. He received a great deal of mail — often four or five letters daily, loving missives from his family in Michigan and also a number from female friends.

Several of the letters contained photographs. Gillet visited White’s Photographic Gallery in DeValls Bluff on Sept. 4, 1864, and had his picture taken, which he sent to his parents and a select few of his female correspondents.

Gillet’s duties changed considerably after Oct. 14, 1864, when he accepted the lieutenancy of Company G, Third Arkansas Cavalry. The new lieutenant found himself providing security along the Arkansas River and stationed at Lewisburg near modern Morrilton.

Besides chasing bushwhackers and other irregular Confederate combatants, Gillet engaged in taking draft animals and food from Confederate sympathizers. On Nov. 27, Gillet recorded having “pressed [took forcibly] 2 ox teams and got two loads of corn … and killed 4 hogs …”

The following spring, Gillet’s men “pressed 2 teams and confiscated Mrs. Wells’ household furniture and all her cattle and hogs and moved them to camp … got some turkeys and chickens.” On another occasion Gillet apparently took items for his own use, including “a splendid Colts Navy Revolver from a prisoner.”

Late in the war, Gillet’s company oversaw the removal of several Confederate families to the south side of the Arkansas River. During the first week of April 1865, Gillet recorded almost daily accounts of banishing rebel families. He began the process on April 4 with a trip to the strongly rebel town of Dover, where his command “pressed 4 teams and loaded 4 reb families & their things on and moved out …”

Gillet does not admit stealing from the families, but he did note that once they got back to camp he “searched all the things that we moved in from Dover.”

He was renting a room in the home of the prominent David Brearley family of Norristown on the north side of the Arkansas River opposite Dardanelle when he found out that “News [was received] of the Capture of Reb Genl Lee, and his whole army.”

Fighting did not stop immediately after Lee’s surrender. The day after hearing the news, Gillet’s company encountered 10 Confederates and fought a pitched battle. A sneak attack on the Union army corral resulted in the theft of several horses, but they were quickly recovered, and the leader of the rebel partisans who took them was killed.

Despite the continuing resistance, word got out, and Confederate soldiers began to surrender to local Union army units. On May 29, Gillet wrote that “300 Rebs came in with a flag of truce and gave up. [They] looked very ragged and dirty.” A week later he noted that “plenty of whipped Rebs [are] comeing in and giving up.”

Gillet stayed in Arkansas following the war. He married a local woman, Julia A. Dacus, and they tried their hand at farming before relocating to Little Rock.