Since my last post on the Pelsor Letters Project, I’ve got the narrative completed for Chapter Two and almost completed for Chapter Three; these chapters contain Pelsor’s letters from July 1861 through March of 1862, the high point being the Battle of Pea Ridge on March 7-8, 1862. But since our outside activity has been mostly curtailed due to the coronavirus, I had more time to work on the letters project, and in particular transcribing Peter Pelsor’s diary.
Ever since I had transcribed the letters, I saw that Peter had written no letters to his wife for the month of February 1862 – this seemed strange, since Peter wrote nine in January and six in March. But in transcribing the diary I found that almost every day’s activity in February was noted.
What I’m calling the “diary” was a small notebook measuring about 2 1/4 by 5 1/4″ inches, which was in a shoebox along with all the letters, and which now is in its own vinyl container. I scanned the contents, which number about 20 pages, some attached to each other in order, but others separate and not collated. In this little notebook, Pelsor recorded cryptically the movement of the regiment, along with names and calculations to help him with his job as Sergeant. The period covered by the notebook was from 26 January to 25 May 1862 – but most are from the month of February.
It is mainly a record of troop movements during this time, when there was a major push south to sweep out of Missouri the Confederate forces commanded by Generals Sterling Price and Ben McCulloch. This push took Pelsor’s regiment from their winter camp near the Missouri River, all the way to Bentonville, Arkansas, then back to Sugar Creek, near the Arkansas-Missouri border, a distance of probably more than 400 miles.
I’ve been keeping a timeline for Peter Pelsor’s life during the war years, and as you can see, the diary really helped to fill in the February gap:
Next time, I’ll talk about another one of my projects, a Peter Pelsor descendancy, a way to identify living descendants so that hopefully pictures of Peter Pelsor and his family (especially some mentioned in his letters) can come to light, if they exist. After other attempts at this, I came up with the idea of a moleskin notebook, and pages for individual descendants will be under their own code:
Fascinating! You have taken on a very interesting task. You have given me incentive to take a class on handwriting as well. Always looking forward to your next discovery.
Thanks, Sheri. I’ve been meaning to send a copy of my transcription of 14 Jan 1862 to you and others researching Sergeant (or the other 8 ways to spell this!) Pelsor. Also, I will send you a scan of my notes from a class “Researching Old Letters & Diaries” that I took in 2018.