Robert's Senior Project- 1

Hello everyone! Unfortunately my computer had been having problems for the past week, but now I am online and ready to post about my senior project.

Basically, I'm doing research on the Civil War. The Civil War unit I am studying is the 19th Ohio Volunteer Artillery, which was a unit formed right here in Cleveland and was comprised of Cleveland men. I have a lot of transcripts of documents pertaining to this unit which describe in detail all sorts of aspects of army life. These range from simple reports about the weather and conditions the men face each day, to greater philosophical observations about the nature of man and war, to really funny stories about late night parties and drunk men (I'll post about those later). My task is to go through all of these documents and pick out the important bits of information (names, dates, funny stories), that would be useful to my sponsor, Mr. Chris Whipple, an author and a descendant of a member of the unit. I'm taking detailed notes about everything I have read, and by the end of it I will create a report about the unit and what I have learned.

I have three collections of document. One is a collection of letters written by private John Watkins to his fiancee. There is a wealth of information in the letters. The second is a collection of diary entries written by Watkins and Michael Houck (my sponsors relative). These are really interesting because they show the inner thoughts of a man at war. Finally there is a recollection of the units adventures written by Theodore C.W. Tracie in 1878. This is more a general overview of the units movements throughout the civil war. All these documents shine light on a unit in the Civil War that, while may not have participated in many battles, still has some very intersting stories to tell.

So that the basics on what I am doing and what I am working with. Posts about specific thoughts and stories will be coming shortly.