In Loving Memory
OF
Seth James Wells
AND
Frank Ewell Wells
Foreword
The Diary of Seth J. Wells from June 14th, 1861, to July 9th, 1864, relates to the every day life of the soldier in camp and field and records its tramps and hardships cheerfully borne.
The Siege of Vicksburg is taken from the Diary.
He was born on April 26th 1842 in Iowa, Des Moines County, near the village of Rising Sun and was reared in his Grandfather Ewell’s family on the “Ewell Farms� in Michigan, Macomb County, near the village of Utica.
He was wounded in battle and died a few days later in a hospital at Vicksburg on July 9th 1864. He enlisted on June 12th 1861 and served in three companies of the United States Army during the Civil War: Company E, 12th Indiana; Company K, 17th Illinois; Company G, 8th Illinois. The brothers, Frank and Seth, were together in Company K, 17th Illinois.
S. E. K.
The Siege of Vicksburg
Dunlap Springs, Nov. 3, 1862. We have built a snug log house and last night for the first and probably last time have slept in it; for our company has orders to move down town and act as city guards. There are eight or ten regiments here, some of them new ones from Jackson, Miss. The new regiments, like all new ones, have great confidence in themselves and think the war is to be settled by them and them only. There is an undercurrent of jealousy existing between the old and new troops. The old troops call the new ones “forty dollar men,� “bounty men,� and “home guards.� Last Friday, Oct. 31, we had general review from Gen. McPherson who is here commanding the post. There were twenty regiments, ten thousand men, I should judge, on the field. There is a great forward movement taking place. All the troops started out on the Grand Junction road this morning with the exception of the 43rd, and 17th Ill. The weather is fine, the days are warm and pleasant, but the nights are very cold and frosty. About once in ten days we have a northeast rainstorm, followed by cold weather and sleet. We are on guard every other day, sometimes every third day.
Nov. 7. We got a buggy shed from the citizens, boarded it up tight, built a furnace in it, and were just putting on the finishing touches, (battening up the cracks with cotton) when we received marching orders. Such is the fortune of war.