A Pair of Letters Written by the Wife of a 105th Illinois Officer at the Close of the Civil War, Centered on a Suspicious Figure Carrying a Valuable Object and the Fear of Deception, and of Losing Her Husband: “He has told half a doz different stories already about his capture […] Such conflicting ones create suspicion.”

[Sycamore, DeKalb County, Illinois], 1865. Two autograph letters, signed “Rosa,” docketed on rear likely in Everell Dutton’s hand, 4 and 5 pages, 8 x 5 inches. Folded at center else fine.. Two letters written in the final weeks of the Civil War by Rosina Adelpha Paine Dutton of Sycamore, Illinois, to her husband Everell Fletcher Dutton, then lieutenant colonel of the 105th Illinois Infantry, engaged in the closing campaigns of the war. The couple had met through their mutual friend Helen Barns Woodmanse and began an unusually close correspondence at the outset of the war, at times exchanging two or three letters a day through 1863. They married in Sycamore on December 31, 1863, and spent several months together in Nashville while Dutton was detailed to the Examination Board, residing at Mrs. Jernigan’s boarding house, before Rosina returned to Illinois and Dutton rejoined his regiment in the field. Rosa wrote a considerable amount of letters to her husband during the war, some of which were collected by the Sycamore History Museum for the exhibition General Dutton’s America.

The two letters here, written a week apart, show Rosina’s fears and the general mood in the days prior to Lincoln’s assassination, with a focus on a mysterious favor done for an unsavory character. The April 2 letter reflects Rosina’s anxiety as she awaits news from the regiment:

“Five hours later. I got to feeling so badly I could not write. I will now resume my chat. I know dear one you are tired of receiving dark gloomy letters from me, but you must not hope for better while you remain in the army. Love you know is always strongly anxious when the loved one is absent. I would give everything we possess in the world if it would but bring you safely home. I am in hopes we will hear something definite from the Regt. tomorrow. I am so anxious and yet I tremble to hear from the Regt… O my Husband if you should be taken from me.”

She searches the newspapers repeatedly—“no list of casualties in the Tribune […] sent Ida after the Times […] sent Winnie & Mary […] for the Evening Journal”—but finds “no relief of mind.” The strain is constant: “whenever I spoke […] the tears would come,” and even at church “I could not keep the tears from my eyes.” She notes that the 105th “could not have been through so severe a contest without losing very many men.”

The April 12 letter is dominated by Rosina’s pointed suspicion toward a man she calls “Gerret,” who appears to have entrusted Dutton with a valuable object:

“Gerret said you had in your valise for him, said it was worth $500.00. If I were in your place I would get rid of it if I had to burn it. I wouldn’t carry anything five miles for that miserable scamp. No one scarcely believes his story about being captured &c. They think he made his way home as best he could & I would not be at all surprised if that were the case. He has told half a doz different stories already about his capture. He ought to have learned his story before he came home, and then told it. Such conflicting ones create suspicion. Father said if he were in your place he would turn it over to Government & then bid it in.”

No individual of this name appears in the rosters or known correspondence of the 105th Illinois, and the tone of the letter suggests he was not a member of Dutton’s regiment.

She closes: “My darling husband, do come and thereby make me the happiest woman in the world, [..?..] try, dear one. I don’t believe but that they will accept resignation now before long. May the good Father of us all take care of you is my constant prayer. Devotedly yours for all eternity. Rose.”

Overall an interesting pair of letters from a well documented and significant correspondence.