DOCUMENTS
THE DIARY OF HARVEY REID: KEPT AT MADISON IN THE SPRING OF 1861
With Introduction and Notes by Milo M. Quaife
The war time diary of Harvey Reid possesses elements of permanent interest and value. Aside from this, however, it should have a special interest now, when we are still passing through the initial stage of another great war in behalf of human liberty and human rights. With the events and emotions of the past few months still fresh in mind, it is well to relive with our eager diarist the opening scenes of the Civil War at the capital of Wisconsin. Madison is an interesting city, with a rich and interesting history; yet it would be impossible to select, from all its eighty years of life, a period more crowded with exciting events than were the three months of April, May, and June, 1861. Fortunately a bright and eager observer was at hand making his daily record of the thrilling life of this exciting time.
Harvey Reid, the diarist, typifies the choicest product of our American civilization. It was not given to him to play a prominent rôle in the drama of his time. Instead, he belonged to the great mass of Americans, of whom, as individuals, posterity will retain no memory. But he was honest, industrious, and loyal, faithful to his country alike in military and in civil life. Although his education was limited to the district school, and to the ten-weeks’ preparatory course at the University of Wisconsin covered by the diary, he retained a lifelong interest in educational affairs, laboring effectively for many years as school director and library trustee. His intellectual vigor is attested by the fact that after reaching
his sixtieth year he began and diligently pursued the study of geology. In the historical field two substantial volumes stand to his credit—a biography of Enoch Long, published by the Chicago Historical Society, and one of Thomas Cox, published by the State Historical Society of Iowa.
Reid was born in Washington County, New York, March 30, 1842, of Scotch-Irish ancestry. When two years of age he was taken by his parents to Wisconsin, the journey being made by way of the Erie Canal and then around the Lakes to Racine, which was reached in June, 1844. The elder Reid shortly removed to Yorkville, and several years later to Union Corners (now Union Grove) in Racine County. Thus Reid grew to manhood in pioneer Wisconsin, and became in the fullest sense a product of the Badger State. In 1859, at the age of seventeen, he began teaching school in an adjoining district at a salary of twenty dollars a month. A second winter was passed in the same way (the summers being devoted to helping his father), and then, in the spring of 1861, came the prized opportunity of ten weeks’ schooling at the state university. How fully the young man improved it the pages of the diary reveal.
Of the three room-mates in old North Hall from Union Grove, in the spring of 1861, Goldsworthy, Fuller, and Reid, only the first-named resumed his studies in the autumn. Reid again taught a winter term of district school in Racine County, and then followed his parents, who had removed to the new town of Shannon, Illinois. But in the summer of 1862, in response to Lincoln’s call for “six hundred thousand more,” he returned to Union Grove to enlist with a squad of boys from the old home neighborhood. Characteristic of the conduct of the Civil War is the fact that of the twenty-four boys of the “Union Grove Squad,” four died of disease, while but one was killed in battle. Reid enlisted at Racine, August 7, 1862, in the Twenty-second Wisconsin Infantry. The
close of the war terminated his service in June, 1865. During the war his father had removed to Sabula, Iowa. Following him thither, on being released from the army, Reid made his home in Jackson County, Iowa, until his death in 1910. He played a worthy, albeit quiet, rôle in life, and died sincerely mourned by the circle of his acquaintances.
The Civil War papers of Mr. Reid were presented to the State Historical Society of Wisconsin a year ago by his daughter, Mary A. Reid of Des Moines. They comprise, in addition to the diary here printed, a voluminous correspondence during the term of military service, with parents and sisters at home. At the beginning of his service Mr. Reid formed the design of writing his home letters in the form of a journal, instead of keeping, as so many Civil War soldiers did, a formal diary. Because of this fact, and of the high order of intelligence and ability possessed by the writer, the letters constitute a valuable record, well worthy of publication when the occasion shall offer.