The Pelsor Letters Project

My 2nd-great grandfather, Peter Dixon Pelsor (1821-1902), was from the little village of Metamora, Indiana, in Franklin County – northeast of Cincinnati, Ohio. In July 1861 he joined the Union Army, 18th Indiana Infantry, along with his son Henry, age 16. Due to his age he started out at the rank of Sergeant, and when he mustered out in December 1864, he left as a Captain.

I found out about ten years ago that my second cousin in Oregon had letters that Peter wrote to our 2nd-great grandmother, Jemima Ann Morford Alley Pelsor (1822-1889). In 2011 I was able to visit my cousin, and help sort the letters, and put them in protective vinyl sheets. There were about 150 objects, including more than 135 letters from Peter, a letter and another document from his son Henry, a letter fragment from Jemima, and a small notebook about 2″ x 3″ which was a “diary” from part of 1862.

After I retired in July, 2015, I went to Oregon and scanned most of the letters. In 2017, I was able to scan the rest of the letters and the diary. By the summer of 2018, when I visited Metamora, I was able to show rough transcriptions of the letters to several of my cousins. And now, with all the letters transcribed and edited, I hope to publish them this year!

There are more than 135 individual letters, but on some occasions he wrote two or three notes in one day – so I have enumerated the letters according to particular dates / places – giving a total for publication of 133. Early on in the project I was fortunate to attend a class in transcribing old letters – so I learned to transcribe them exactly as Peter wrote them (including line breaks). The size of each letter varied from a one-page note to sometimes six pages. Initially, there were a number of letter fragments, but I was able to put them together with twelve letters that were incomplete. So all the 133 are complete documents.

I envision my book to chronicle Peter’s service according to the locations he served, and so each chapter will begin with my own summary about what happened, including relevant details about other events happening in the Civil War in other theatres. Here is an outline for the book (numbers refer to the letters transcribed in that chapter):

1. Introduction
2. Jul 1861 – Nov 1861 – Missouri Bound (1-17)
3. Nov 1861 – Apr 1862 –  Winter Camp to Pea Ridge (18-43)
4. Apr 1862 – Nov 1862  – Arkansas Journey, Then Home (44-61)
5. Nov 1862 –  Mar 1863 – Missouri Revisited (62-78)
6. Mar 1863 –  Aug 1863 – Vicksburg Campaign (79-92)
7. Aug 1863 – Jun 1864 – Texas Gulf Duty, Then Home Again (93-113)
8. Jul 1864 – Dec 1864 – Shenandoah Finale (114-133)
9. Postscript
10. Chronology
11. Index of People

Every letter mentions particular people, and I will be compiling an index, which I hope will be valuable to descendants of these people as they research their own family history.

One of my next steps is to transcribe Peter’s little “diary” which is not so much his thoughts but rather a record of the movements of his regiment.

I’m also very interested in collecting pictures of Peter and his family, and am compiling a list of descendants (a daunting project in itself, as Peter and Jemima had a blended family of six children, then had themselves six more!). I will update my progress on the book monthly, now that work is heating up.