{"id":1236,"date":"2010-12-13T10:10:25","date_gmt":"2010-12-13T15:10:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/blogdivided\/?p=1236"},"modified":"2010-12-13T13:34:53","modified_gmt":"2010-12-13T18:34:53","slug":"civil-war-letters-of-the-christie-family","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/blogdivided\/2010\/12\/13\/civil-war-letters-of-the-christie-family\/","title":{"rendered":"Civil War Letters of the Christie Family"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.mnhs.org\/library\/Christie\/intropage.html\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-1237\" style=\"border: 6px solid black;\" title=\"christie_family\" src=\"http:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/blogdivided\/files\/2010\/03\/christie_family.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"203\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>The <a href=\"http:\/\/www.mnhs.org\/library\/Christie\/intropage.html\" target=\"_blank\">Civil War Letters of the Christie Family<\/a> at the Minnesota Historical Society offer an interesting perspective from three brothers who served in the Union army. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.mnhs.org\/library\/Christie\/td_christie.html\" target=\"_blank\">Thomas <\/a>and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.mnhs.org\/library\/Christie\/wg_christie.html\" target=\"_blank\">William <\/a>Christie, who were both born in Ireland, enlisted in the First Minnesota Battery in 1861 and participated in the Vicksburg campaign as well as General William T. Sherman\u2019s March to the Sea. Thomas had no difficulty in adjusting to \u201cmilitary life,\u201d but noted that other soldiers in his regiment apparently found the transition to be a difficult one. \u201cA great many of our men \u2014 and the Americans especially \u2014 cannot leave off those habits of Independence, which are so meritorious in the civilian, but so pernicious in the Soldier,\u201d as <a href=\"http:\/\/www.mnhs.org\/library\/Christie\/letters\/1224611.html\" target=\"_blank\">Thomas observed<\/a>. While they described their experiences during the war in detail, they also commented on contemporary political issues. William identified slavery as the cause of the conflict and supported President Lincoln\u2019s Emancipation Proclamation. \u201cFor lighting the torch of Freedom,\u201d <a href=\"http:\/\/www.mnhs.org\/library\/Christie\/letters\/0606631.html\" target=\"_blank\">William wrote<\/a> that \u201cthe oppressed thoughout the land are this day Praying God to give us the victory.\u201d <a href=\"http:\/\/www.mnhs.org\/library\/Christie\/as_christie.html\" target=\"_blank\">Alexander<\/a>, however, did not enlist until late 1864. After several months of training, his infantry regiment arrived in North Carolina in early April 1865 to participate in what <a href=\"http:\/\/www.mnhs.org\/library\/Christie\/letters\/0409651.html\" target=\"_blank\">he considered<\/a> \u201cthe last great forward advancement of Sherman&#8217;s Army.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In December 2010 the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.mnhs.org\/index.htm\" target=\"_blank\">Minnesota Historical Society<\/a> published a collection of these \u00a0letters &#8212; Hampton Smith, <em><a href=\"http:\/\/shop.mnhs.org\/moreinfo.cfm?Product_ID=2711\" target=\"_blank\">Brother of Mine: The Civil War Letters of Thomas and William Christie<\/a> <\/em>(2010). \u201cThe letters are so engaging that one longs for more,\u201das a review in the Minneapolis \u2013 St. Paul <em>Star Tribune<\/em> notes. You can read the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.startribune.com\/entertainment\/books\/111277309.html?elr=KArksD:aDyaEP:kD:aU1ccmiUiD3aPc:_Yyc:aULPQL7PQLanchO7DiUr\" target=\"_blank\">full review here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Civil War Letters of the Christie Family at the Minnesota Historical Society offer an interesting perspective from three brothers who served in the Union army. Thomas and William Christie, who were both born in Ireland, enlisted in the First Minnesota Battery in 1861 and participated in the Vicksburg campaign as well as General William [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[80,172,174],"tags":[161],"class_list":["post-1236","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-civil-war-1861-1865","category-letters-diaries","category-recent-scholarship","tag-battles-soldiers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/blogdivided\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1236","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/blogdivided\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/blogdivided\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/blogdivided\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/blogdivided\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1236"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/blogdivided\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1236\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3460,"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/blogdivided\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1236\/revisions\/3460"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/blogdivided\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1236"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/blogdivided\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1236"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/blogdivided\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1236"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}