Dartmouth Graduate, J. Oscar Tiel, Pre and Early Civil War-Period Archive 

11 items.

This archive of letters from J. Oscar Tiel to W.H. Anderson date from December 1860 to August 1862, following his adventures as a New Hampshire Yankee in the Secessionist South, his return North, and enlistment in the "Dartmouth Company" of the three-months 7th Rhode Island cavalry squadron.

The first letter, dated December 3, 1860, finds Tiel at Sligo Plantation, outside Natchez, MS. In it, he details his journey from New Hampshire, across to Chicago (where he met President-elect Lincoln and Vice President-elect Hamlin and their wives, shaking their hands.) The train to Cairo was snowed-in, and they had to burn fence railings to survive. He arrived by riverboat to Natchez, where he was employed as a private teacher of the children of rich plantation owners.

The next letter, dated February 27, 1861, bears the curious location of New Orleans, Louisiana Southern Republic. The State had seceded from the Union in January, and was an independent nation. Amid the big celebrations is the hope that secession would be "peaceable." Tiel was reconsidering his situation, and had about decided to return North and attend Harvard. He had apparently taken Anderson's place as private. On March 16, he took some of the boys down to see the 1814 battlefield where Andrew Jackson defeated the British: All I see in the political aspect of N.O. since the inauguration at W[ashington] is a more thorough preparation for war… I think old family ties must be obliterated in the North.

By May, he was back in New Hampshire, studying in various law offices in the city of Franklin. June found him as legal assistant to Judge George Washington Nesmith, looking up case precedents. Despite his friends and pleasant times in the Deep South, Tiel was a "Union Man," through and through: Our NH regiment is in the advance army, The Sec. Regiment is a more proficient one than the first. The leg. will probably appropriate a million for war purposes, and raise a regiment of state militia in each county. The rebels must succeed or every dollar of northern riches and every life must go. Extermination for one or the other side is my notion.

The archive skips a year, to find Tiel in Company "B", 7th Squadron, Rhode Island Cavalry. From Camp Sprague outside Washington, DC, the squadron made scouting patrols into Virginia:

You would judge by our riding through these woods and bogs that Knight -Errantry was revived. Our arms are sabers and Colt’s navy revolvers. We had carbines but exchanged yesterday. Probably we are to act as patrolmen in this city. The disciplined troops are being all removed to Richmond, or rather to the peninsula, and the city is left almost unprotected except by the 9th R.I. - 3 months men - and this little squadron...I think I shall continue in the army in some capacity after this three months, or perhaps be transferred sooner to a NH or Mass Regt… I wish to learn from you soon what the state of feeling is in Mass and what the opportunities are to be for commissions. I think I should have no difficulty in procuring any situation in a N.H. regiment.

August 14th found Tiel's cavalry squadron at Winchester, VA, the Federal base of operations in the Shenandoah Valley. They were engaged in scouting and picket duty:

There is in and about Winchester a large Union element, much more than I expected to find. Indeed, I didn’t think there was such a sentiment here in any degree. The larger proportion of the people I think are unmistakably Union. They have been quiet, expecting the return of Jackson… I have talked to the sons of men who went across into PA or Md when Jackson advanced... The force stationed here is the brigade of Gen’l White… This is the key to the Valley and is strongly fortified with newly erected forts. No Jackson can pass here and it seems by late news, he can’t even approach.

Tiel also talks more about duty around Washington:

At Alexandria we were close to Fairfax Seminary about three miles from the city… There was nothing to do but guard our own camp and drill. Our rides there were not simple recreations, being extended often to thirty and forty miles. Around us was encamped Gen Shield’s brigade, or the remnant of it. The brigade went under Banks with 5000 men, and there are but a thousand left, and of the missing, but few are prisoners.

The last time we were out, we stopped to supper at an old Rebel’s fed our horses and ourselves bountifully and then drove off a hundred head of his cattle and some horses.

He notes that their term of service is about to expire: Our three months are up the 24th Sept. It is said we are to go to RI a week earlier and be mustered out on that day for the double purpose of getting as many as possible of the RI boys to re enlist and also of organizing as soon as may be possible a battalion of cavalry, which our major is to command. Actually, with Lee invading Maryland, the squadron volunteered to remain on active duty until the Confederates were driven back into Virginia. When Union forces were driven out of the Valley, and Harpers Ferry surrendered, the 7th RI Cavalry managed to evade capture and return to the Army of the Potomac, where it did picket duty during Antietam.