Stephen Burton papers

The material in the Stephen Burton papers consists primarily of a grouping of Civil War letters written to his wife Polly, between 1862 and 1863, while Burton was serving with Co.B, 103rd Ohio Volunteer Infantry. There are also a small number of letters from J.S. Hendrickson (Polly's son from a previous marriage) who was in the same regiment as his step-father, as well as a few scattered letters to Polly from other family members.

The Civil War correspondence is probably typical of the common soldier serving in the Union Army and is filled with misspellings and grammatical errors. Burton's letters to his wife deal with such mundane matters as getting clothing sent home, remarks about the scarcity of mail, the weather, concern for her health, expression of love and longing (they had just been married two months when he entered the army), and daily activities of the regiment.

Because of the peculiarities of Burton's style of writing it does take awhile to get used to the correspondence, but once such features as his phonetic spelling is accounted for the writing itself is clear. For example, because of his English background, he has a habit of dropping the "h" in some words so that "happiness" appears as "appenice", with such other vagaries of spelling as having the word "cold" used for could, called, or cold. Punctuation is also erratic.

The handwriting in the letters written by J.S. Hendrickson, Burton's stepson, is much more difficult to read. The contents of his letters deal more with events in the war, including description in the letter of July 15, 1864 of some soldiers killed or injured by falling trees during a storm and one rather strongly worded undated fragment (possibly included in one of Stephen Burton's letters) about having a rubber coat stolen.

The remaining letters to Polly from Reublin family members were all written after the death of Stephen Burton. In the letters from her brothers, John and Garrett, deal with arranging a visit with family for Christmas and other family news. Two letters from Anna Porter Reublin (wife of Polly's nephew, Henry) include news about her children, mutual friends, and activities.