Your Bad Handwriting Just Might Make You A Nazi.

So I already think my job is pretty cool. This blog is evidence to the fact that I am a complete history nerd, so it’s pretty easy to get me excited about random old papers. But every once in a while, I get to see some TRULY awesome things.

Today, as I do every Friday, I went down to the conservation lab to pick up the past week’s boxes and drop off a new batch. One of the conservators opened the door to let me in, and said those magic words: “wanna see something really cool?”

Um, absolutely I do.

As luck would have it, earlier today CSPAN had paid a visit to the Archives to cover the recently acquired Nuremburg documents. And even more as luck would have it, the conservator hadn’t put them away yet.

Believe it or not, there’s more. The conservation lab also happened to be working on several Ben Franklin letters at the moment I walked in.

Adolf Hitler and Benjamin Franklin, side by side. I hope your mind just exploded, because mine definitely did.

The most important thing I learned is this: by the handwriting alone, it was clear which belonged to the mild-mannered inventor of bifocals, and which belonged to the crazed mass-murderer. If your signature ends with a delightful flourish, and you sign your beautifully legible letters with nice things like "your obedient servant," you're probably doing pretty okay in life. But if your signature looks like it might be a prototype for a swastika, I would probably recommend that you seriously reevaluate your handwriting and lifestyle choices.

(Pictures from Google images)

So be careful, folks. In two hundred years, people might look at letters you wrote or receipts you signed and wonder… that sloppy handwriting just might call your moral character into question.

God Help the Outcasts?

So many of the stories I read are about desperation. The Act of July 14, 1862 was, above all, in recognition of the fact that widows, mothers, and children of slain soldiers literally had no way of supporting themselves. In many states women could not own property, and sometimes lost custody of their children. Mothers who were already in tenuous positions depending on their sons (either having been widowed or having disabled husbands) lost, in many cases, their last hope of support.

Through our 21st century eyes, it is shocking what these women and children would do to get their $8 a month. It seems to me an almost herculean effort just to have gotten all the correct documentation to the pension office. Consider that many soldiers were recent immigrants to America. How could their widows be expected to prove legal marriage when they were married in Bavaria in the 1840s? The officiating priest might be long dead, and all the witnesses to the ceremony could still be in Bavaria or could have scattered across the globe in the age of mass immigration. I have even seen the files of widows who were still in Europe-- most often Ireland, Denmark, and Germany-- when their husbands died fighting for the Union. How's that for the land of opportunity?

In light of the desperate situation these women were thrown into, it is no surprise that many, many, many files I see are of widows who eventually lost or came close to losing their pensions because of "adulterous immoral behavior." More often, this simply means that the woman ended up living with a man she did not marry, in order that he might support her but that she could still collect her pension. Sometimes, though, this indicates that the woman had to turn to prostitution. We also see many files with letters of complaint from neighbors, revealing that the woman had become an alcoholic and was not taking proper care of her children. But having lost her husband and her only means of support in a world that had virtually no public place for women-- can you blame her?

Last week, I came across a particularly striking act of desperation. In October of 1865, Sarah Richards wrote a letter to President Andrew Johnson begging for her pension. The process of receiving her certificate was a slow one, and she was barely surviving in the waiting period. Her language in the letter in particular is strikingly elegant and pleading. Consider this: how desperate would you have to be to sit down and write a letter to the President? The letter was too faded to scan, but see the transcript below:

North Troy, Oct 18th/65
Mr. President/Honorable Sir,

Poverty sometimes drives people to desperation-- although it may not be considered a desperate act in writing to you-- yet under almost any other circumstances I should not presume or attempt to force this illiterate communication upon you. I have written once before and now again and in the name of the Lord through whose dispensations I have been deprived of a kind companion and left a widow. I appeal to you as one who sympathizes with and feels for the interests of the widows and orphans of one land made so through one common cause. And now my dear Sir-- it is useless to multiply words-- and you will pardon me if I thereby trespass upon your patience-- what I want to say it this-- will you for the sake of suffering humanity endeavor to hurry on my pension? That is if I am entitled to it-- and I am, am I not? Does it many any difference as long as my husband contracted his disease while doing his duty whether he died out of service or in it was chronic diarrhea and he lived only 5 weeks after coming home. He never asked for his dischrage and did not know that he was for several days after the doctor marked him down. Then as he felt impressed that he could not survive long he felt an anxiety to die in his own home and native land. My attorney C.M. Lander has collected many pensions, and he says he has got those whose cases are precisely like mine-- and he gives me great encouragement. But Oh-- you don't know how much I need it. I am not able to do anything of consequence towards a living-- have been teaching school, but now my health is so feeble that I cannot do that-- and I am depending from day to day upon the charity and sympathy of the public. Although I feel thankful for their favors-- yet I suffer for many comforts which I could have if I had the means in my own hands. Oh, well you help me get it immediately-- and the widows God will help you. I am sitting in my room tonight and although cold enough for a grand fire-- I have none-- no wood or money to buy it with. I have got to go out in the morning feeble as I am and try to raise some somewhere and where to go I know not it is not time for the city to give out coal and wood to the poor, and my neighbors and acquaintances have helped me so much. I have not the (illegible) to ask them for more and thus I live from day to day, trusting, trusting, hoping, praying, looking forward to better and brighter days-- but Oh if my (illegible) should all perish-- then what. Why God only knows what poor lonely (illegible) we would be tempted to do. I know I am poor and humble-- perhaps-- unworthy of your notice-- but the efforts on my behalf will be rewarded by One who ever pleads the case of the poor.

Yours respectfully,
Mrs. S Richards
(WC 58842, Horace G Richards, Co C, 169 New York Infantry)

God, they just wrote better back then, didn't they? Sarah's letter might sound melodramatic, but when you consider the times you have to believe that her situation was indeed every bit as desperate as she writes it to be. All too many letters I see echo Sarah's frustration. It becomes easy to demonize pension agents when we read heart-wrenching letters like these (or, in my case, when it's clear that the pension agent was in fact an ADHD 3rd grader with a glue stick. Beside the point.). We have to remember, of course, that pension agents were just doing their job-- there were certain proofs that had to be furnished, and all we can hope is that if they were slow in approving pensions, it was only because they were so thorough. But in the meantime, Sarah paints a melancholy portrait of the many widows, mothers, and orphans who, like her, only got colder and hungrier while they waited for the pensions to be approved.

Your Affectionate Son, Tom

Many pension files contain letters from soldiers at the front. Because it was harder for a mother to prove her dependence on her son than for a widow to prove dependence on a husband, the vast majority of soldiers' letters we find are in mothers' pension files. Letters are usually submitted because they contain a passing reference to "that $10 I sent you," or inquiries to confirm the mother is surviving off the money sent home.

The letters we find range from the hilarious to the heartbreaking. I once read a letter from a soldier to his wife, clearly in reply to a nagging note she had sent him, assuring her that he thought she was "a darn sight prettier than Ed Curtain's wife." Whether they are mundane notes from half-literate privates, elegant love letters, or last wishes composed from hospital beds, all these letters carry the words of the noble ghosts who gave their lives for the Union. It is impossible to forget that even the happy stories we read ended badly; we deal only in widows and orphans. I'll be honest. The first time I found a soldier letter, I was a little overcome. The room happened to be empty at the time, and I definitely cried. You cannot imagine how different it is to actually hold the piece of paper that the soldier wrote upon and lovingly sent home. Reading a transcription cannot do it justice. And so, while it is by no means the most interesting letter I've found (in fact, it's comparatively boring), for my first real post, I will share with you the first soldier letter I found. From widow's certificate (WC) #52775, it is a letter from Private Thomas W. Simpson of Company A in the 91st Pennsylvania Infantry.

Transcription:
Camp near Pegram's Farm
October 9th 1864
Dear Mother,
Mary's letter of the 5th was received this (Sunday) morning and am glad to hear that you are all well, and that you received the money $150. I sent as I before mentioned $50 by Lieut. Brass, which I guess you have received before this. I was unable to get change at the time, as I expected to go into a fight soon, I thought I would send it home with Brass as he was going home that day. I wrote for a shirt in the last latter. I suppose you have sent. You will please to send me $10 as soon as you receive this as I have a use for it, and have no change left. We are once more settled in a camp, and the shovel and pick is again in use. We were out all day yesterday establishing a new picket line and advancing the pickets. We had some difficulty from sharpshooters who were lodged in a house, and the 2nd Division played a battery on it, and they soon got up and got away, and the house was soon in flames. I hope the money sent will be of some service to you all this winter as I guess things must be pretty dear in Philadelphia. There is a very perceptible change in the weather here, it is beginning to grow cold. Dear Mother I hope you will not let news worry you, as I feel as safe here, as if I was at home, as I will not die before my time comes. No more at present.
Your affectionate son,
Tom

Eighteen days later, on October 27, 1864, Pvt. Tom Simpson was killed in action at the Battle of Hatcher's Run. This letter to his mother is almost boring- he rambles on, asks for new shirts, and talks about the weather. But in a brilliant flash of sentimentality at the end of his note, Tom shows his innocence and hope in the face of devastating uncertainty. The 91st Pennsylvania had seen Antietam, Gettysburg, Cold Harbor,  and the siege of Petersburg, to name only a few of the Civil War's bloodiest engagements. Tom's enduring hope and affection is exemplary of the very soldiers we love most to remember.

The Process

Disclaimer: don’t even bother reading this post if you don’t have an interest in understanding the process. I feel it necessary to explain what I do so that I can feel comfortable using CWCC jargon in later posts. So, bear with me. Or don’t. Like I said in the beginning, I follow the records through the entire digitization project. Here, I’ll try to (as briefly as possible) walk through it step by step.

First, I pull the boxes from the shelves. With a paintbrush, I dust them off, and cough and sneeze violently from the decades of dust I release into the atmosphere. Then, I pull out all the folders from the box (there are anywhere from 30 to 50). Along with folders, boxes will contain loose paper "consolidated cards," which are often in poor condition from being squashed in the back for years. These consolidated cards indicate a situation, for example, in which a widow was receiving a pension, and she either died or remarried, thus making her ineligible to continue. In this case, her children become eligible to apply for the pension (a minor's pension). Those children receive a new pension number, which is later on in the series. Where the widow's pension number was, there will be a card indicating the files have moved. I remove all these loose cards, tab the damaged ones for repair, and place them in mylar sleeves. Then, I look in every folder and remove extraneous pieces of paper, paperclips, etc. I make sure there is a folder or card for every file number represented. If there is not, I make a note of it and must look it up on the microfilm index later. 

I take the consolidated cards and look up each soldier on a database- I prefer Footnote.com, but Ancestry.com and the NPS’s Civil War Soldiers and Sailors System are also good resources. I verify the soldier’s name and regiment information, and I type up a target sheet with this information on it. I put the sheets in with the original document in mylar, and refile them in their boxes.

The task of the 74 CWCC volunteers is to "prep" the files. This involves looking at EVERY piece of paper, taking out certain "selected documents," and putting them in the front. Selected documents are: the brief, original application, proof of service (a form from the Adjutant General’s Office, from now on the AGO), proof of death (an affidavit or a letter from the Surgeon General), proof of marriage (ALL marriages- whether the original soldier or not), and proof of children. The volunteers then fill out a "target sheet" with the vital information-- name, regiment, and pensioner's name information. The volunteers also mark documents for conservation as needed.

Once the volunteers have done their files, they come back to me for QA, or quality assurance. I look through their selected documents, and ensure that the information they extract for the target sheets is correct. I correct any mistakes—most often, mislabeled military organizations—and sometimes rewrite the target sheets in neat block letters. This is because the files, once digitized, will be indexed by data enterers in China/India/Bangladesh, who must be able to read the forms very clearly, as they are (obviously) not in their native alphabet.

Once the files have gone through QA, they are sent to conservation to repair any damaged documents. They then come back to us, and we send them off to the scanners, who image them. From there, the now-digital files are sent to Footnote.com, where they’ll be indexed and eventually posted online. We are about to break the 60,000^th file mark, and Footnote is up to about 38,500 posted online. The end.

The CWCC averages between 20-25 boxes per week. With an average of 40 files in every box, that means we see between 800-1000 files a week. These don’t all go through me—our project manager shares the task of QA—but it is still an almost nauseating number of stories that pass under my eyes every day. And so, this blog will be the place to record these findings, comment on random impressions, and try to honor the hardship of the 1.28 million Civil War pensioners by telling some of their stories.

Introductions

"From this point forth we shall be leaving from the firm foundation of fact and journeying together through murky marshes of memory into thickets of wildest guesswork."

This quote, from the venerable Albus Dumbledore (via J.K. Rowling, via Divine Inspiration), may be a little too whimsical for the comfort of most historians when it comes to approaching a project. However, after spending a few short months with the stories of only about 10,000 of the 1.28 million Civil War ghosts archived in the Widows' Certificate Pension Series (Record Group 15) at the National Archives, it is all too clear to me how much guesswork and, at times, divine inspiration comes into play.

A little explanation about the project. It all started when an Act of July 1862 granted widows and dependent family members of Civil War soldiers a pension of a baseline $8 a month. Officers' dependents would receive more, and later acts would increase the amount and grant an additional sum for each child the soldier left behind. From 1862 all the way into the 1930s, 1.28 million pensions were awarded. The National Archives, in conjunction with Family Search and Footnote.com, is currently digitizing these pension records through the Civil War Conservation Corps (CWCC), an almost entirely volunteer effort. I am one half of the whopping two NARA staff members who oversee the project. At its inception, the digitization was slated to take about 90 years to complete. Only a few years later, we have that number down to 53 years. And so, as you can imagine, there is never a dull moment at the CWCC.

As the CWCC project manager's student assistant, I follow the records through the entire digitization project. I often grapple with (what seem like) the best efforts of the volunteers and the indexers to foil the integrity of the project-- I have to determine not only what is the correct information, but what a novice would assume about what is given, and how to then tailor it such that they won't get it wrong somewhere along the process once the files have left my hands. In short, I am a freshly minted classically trained historian (has Notre Dame ever trained anyone UNclassically?) surviving in a digital historian's world. I have to learn how to think like a digital historian on the practical end before I can begin to actually conduct historical inquiry on the content end.

The purpose of this blog, to be frank, is to force myself to collect my thoughts over the next few months. I am currently taking Clio Wired I, an introduction to the digital humanities, as part of my MA program in applied and digital History. At the end of the semester, I have to present some sort of paper or project relating to the digital humanities. Obviously, I'd like to do something involving my work, both to make the legwork easier on myself and to potentially benefit my office by enriching its mission or enhancing its productivity. Until lightning strikes and I come up with the perfect project idea, I will stay here on my safe little blog. Every day, I will record what I see, hear, and think during my day of work at the CWCC. Interesting files, funny names, and disturbing medical ailments will most assuredly make their way here. If I have any readers at all beyond myself, I hope at the very least this will provide you with some amusement at the goofy humanity of our venerable ancestors in the 1860s. I welcome any and all comments-- as I have recently learned through Clio I, the practice of digital history is necessarily becoming a collaborative effort, and any questions, comments, or exclamations you, nonexistent reader, might have could potentially inspire my final project's subject, aim, and scope. Although (sorry kids) we can't all be history detectives wielding stack keys, we're all participants in history whether we like it or not. And so, as future victims of our great great grandchildren's mockery and consternation at the ridiculous lives we lead, join me in this circle of life by doing the same to our own predecessors. Americans in 1860 were together brilliant and brave, dirty and deranged, stupid and slutty. They were heroes, idiots, martyrs, criminals, saints, and whores. In short, they were just like us. Commune with them, and enjoy their stories.