Letters from Home
Krayton Kerns
11.7.07
It was a Sunday. Tom began the morning eating his meager rations while warming himself near the campfire. In his free hand he clutched a packet of letters from home. Although he had read them several times the evening before, he placed his coffee cup near the fire and meticulously folded and secured them in the left breast pocket of his uniform. He so missed home and would read them again. Unknown then, but that step to save those letters would affect 246 lives in the years ahead. As dawn broke over the eastern bank of the Tennessee River the quiet morning suddenly exploded. The Confederate Army launched the most successful surprise attack of the Civil War.
It was April 6th, 1862 and 19 year-old Union flag bearer, Corporal Thomas A. Powers of Company E in the 41st Regiment of the Ohio Infantry, was swallowed by the bloodiest battle of the Civil War---the Battle at Shiloh. Over the next two days more Americans will lose their lives than the combined totals of all previous American wars.
The smoke, noise and confusion will forever hide the details. But, sometime that afternoon a Confederate musket ball exploded through the dust and shattered Tom’s left wrist before it struck the packet of letters he had placed in his breast pocket hours earlier. Ironically slowed by the mail, the lead ball became forever wedged between his 5th and 6th ribs; mere inches from his pounding heart. Tom survived Shiloh. 23,746 Americans did not.
With a permanently twisted left wrist, Corporal Powers was honorably discharged on August 19th, 1862. Traveling west, Tom secured a teaching job in Half Rock, Missouri. It was there he met and married the love of his life, Millie Brittain. Although their life was safe, the draw for opportunity in the Wyoming Territory proved stronger than the security of staying home. They eventually sold all they had and headed west.
It was September 7th, 1886 when Tom and Millie divided their five children---Rose, Roy, Lottie, Trixie and Phineas---amongst two wagons and a buggy and said farewell to Mercer County. Left behind in Missouri were two infants who had died from Scarlet Fever. Only memories of twins Lettie and Elmira will make this trip; forever carried in that special place known only to a mother and father who have lost a child.
Millie dutifully recorded the daily events as they plodded west. Throughout her journal is the common theme that the vast beauty of Kansas, Nebraska and Wyoming was surpassed only by the hospitality from earlier pioneers who had settled along the route. In spite of the vast openness of the west, they were never truly alone.
A couple entries are interesting. It was September 16th near Elm Creek in northeast Kansas. Three boys traveling south out of Nebraska were “out in the cornfield foraging when the owner of the field came up. The boys owned a bird dog and just about that time had to sell and Tom wanted to buy so gave the boys $3 for it. Don’t know as he is good for anything.” 14 days and 300 miles later, west of North Platte Nebraska, “we discovered we had left our dog. Of course we couldn’t stand that, so we turned our horse’s heads, went and hunted him up. Found him shut up in the (North Platte) livery stable where Tom had put his horses.” The dog’s name was never mentioned and the last entry concerning him occurred on October 4th. Millie reports “our dog we find is a very good one. He is so obedient.”
The October 8th entry, made while camped on the Platte River, says so much about that era. Tom “went to the river, got us some drift wood for fuel. Thursday washed, ironed, and baked that evening.” Millie was on a 1200 mile camping trip with 5 children and she ironed their clothes. Theirs was a generation of “pride” and “self-respect.” Sadly, 100 years later, this ideal has been replaced with “grunge” and “self-esteem.” We can learn much from our elders.
The diary abruptly stops October 28th just 50 miles from their destination. The remaining pages are forever lost. We do know Tom, Millie and their five children arrived at the homestead of Millie’s uncle, Wesley Brittain, on November 6th 1886. They built a one room dug-out, sod house in the east foothills of the Big Horn Mountains. This became home for the next six months and because of the protection of its dirt walls, they survived the historic winter of ’86-’87. (Think of the CM Russell painting “Last of 5,000”. That winter claimed many lives.)
With the spring thaw in 1887, the Powers family traveled 7 miles to the northwest and homesteaded on the banks of East Pass Creek near the town of Slack. After 8 months and 1200 miles, my great, great grand parents had finally made it home to Wyoming.
I told you that story not because there was anything special about Tom and Millie Powers. On the contrary, they were typical of the thousands of risk takers who seized an opportunity. You must realize it wasn’t SCHIP, Medicaid, Medicare, Social Security, Welfare, Universal Health Care, Prescription Drug Benefits, Bio-Diesel Incentive Programs, Clean & Green Energy, or Minimum Wage, that drew them west. It was freedom. Thank God for veterans who recognize that “give me liberty or give me death” is more than a catchy phrase.
Veterans’ Day is November 11th. From July 1776 until this morning, 630,889 Americans have given their lives for liberty. If I were to stand on the floor of the Montana House of Representatives and vote in any fashion that diminishes freedom, I would be insulting the sacrifice made by those who have served this great nation. That goes against my soul.
My grandson, Grant Patton Kimmel, was born October 1, 2007. He is the 246th descendant of Corporal Thomas A. Powers. Grant is with us today because 145 years ago in Tennessee, a soldier received “letters from home.” Although the amount of Powers blood in Grant’s tiny body is small, I pray the blood he did receive will drive him to load his wagon with his wife and family and live as a free man.
