Civil War Patriotic Cover and Letter written by Monroe McCollister of the 6th Ohio Cavalry. He wrote from Camp Cleaveland, Ohio. Great content about the drafting of soldiers, how they get to choose with cavalry regiment they join, telegraph news from the Governor, and then a humorous section about how he was cooking aboard a troop train and his cap caught the window and blew outside of the moving train.
This Civil War Patriotic Cover and letter was penned by Monroe McCollister of Newton Falls, Trumbull county, Ohio. The only US Census in which he can be positively identified is in 1860 where he is enumerated in the household of Jonah and Eliza H. (Fullerton) Woodward of Jackson township, Mahoning county, Ohio. In that census, he is identified as an 18 year-old young man but no occupation is given. Presumably he was employed by Jonah Woodward on his farm but we know from Monroe’s letters that he had also developed a trade in leather repair—a trade that served him well in the army where he was assigned duty as a “saddler.” No family connection between Monroe and the Woodward’s has been found though they made have been related. Attempts to learn the identity of Monroe’s parents have come to nought.
The Ohio marriage records reveal that on 28 June 1860, Monroe and Mary “Angeline” Gamber were married in Trumbull county, Ohio. Their ages were both recorded as 16 though Monroe may have been a year or two older if the census taker was correct in what he recorded. Angeline’s parents were Jacob Gamber and Elizabeth Henderson, both born in 1816 if the census records are correct. The marriage ceremony was none too soon for Monroe and Angeline as she gave birth to their first child in September 1860. The child’s name was Eliza S. McCollister. A second child—a boy named Jacob S. McCollister—was born two years later in September 1862.
Little of Monroe’s motivation for volunteering in the Ohio 6th Cavalry is revealed by his letters. He was apparently not drafted, however, as draftees were briefly trained and sent quickly from Camp Cleveland (in Cleveland, Ohio) to re-supply the rosters of regiments already in the field. Monroe may have accepted a bounty to volunteer as were many of the young men enlisting by the fall of 1862. Official records indicate he enlisted on 1 November 1862 but we know from his letters that he was already at Camp Cleveland prior to that date. It is somewhat ironic that Monroe spent more time at Camp Cleveland waiting to be mustered into the service—which did not occur until February 1863—than he spent as an official member of the 6th Ohio Volunteer Cavalry (OVC).
In February, Monroe was finally transported to the Virginia seaboard where he and other recruits joined the regiment at Potomac Station—not far from Fredericksburg. The Army of the Potomac had wintered there and were awaiting another spring campaign against Lee’s Army, lying just across the Rappahannock river. Monroe made it to the regiment before the Battle of Kelly’s Ford in which the 6th OVC played a major role, but he had not yet been issued his equipments or assigned a horse so he did not participate. Less than a month later, he was dead—the victim of Black Measles and possibly also an attack of typhoid fever. He was buried outside the Division Hospital at Potomac Station.
Angeline did not receive the news of her husband’s death until a couple of weeks later. Left a widow with two young children to raise, Angeline apparently stayed on in Newton Falls, Trumbull county, until she either died or remarried sometime between the 1870 and 1880 US Census-taking. She did apply for and receive a “Widow’s Pension” which began payments of $8 per month commencing in April 1863 but the pension records do not indicate when the payments terminated, which usually occurred upon the death of the widow or her remarriage. In any event, her children were enumerated in the household of their maternal grandparents in the 1880 census.