Introduction

Daniel Francis Kemp served as a Landsman in the United States Navy from September 26, 1862 until December 23, 1863, a year long commitment that the Navy extended to 15 months through bureaucratic snafus. During that time Daniel wrote regularly to his parents and sisters.

The 34 letters presented here in "Your Affectionate Son" span 65 years and 2 centuries. Thirty-one of the letters were written between 1862 and 1863 when Daniel, age 19, was serving on gunboats on the Mississippi River. Clearly he wrote more than 31, but these are the ones that were saved. Some are partial letters. They provide a very human protrayal of the war. In some of them he describes what is going on around the boat as he writes. He vents frustration and annoyance. And he talks about his friends. Other letters are heartbreaking when he talks about the death of friends. In one letter, he asks his Mother to inform a Buffalo family about the loss of their son. Daniel participated in the Battle of Arkansas Post, January 9 - 11, 1863 and the Siege of Vicksburg, May 18 - July 4, 1863. On May 27, 1863 he was on the USS Cincinnati as it attempted to round the bend in the Mississippi at Vickburg. It came under intense fire and sank; about 1/3 of the crew perished. Daniel wrote a letter to his family only a few hours after the remaining crew was rescued.

Two of the letters were written 50 years after he was discharged from the Navy. A successful manufacturer's agent, Daniel was in St. Louis on business. Daniel first saw St. Louis in 1863, and he spent weeks in Carondelet while his boat was undergoing repair. Carondelet was then a small town near St. Louis; by 1910 it had been absorbed into the city. It was a place full of memories. As was his custom, he wrote letters describing battles to his grandchildren. For a time all his grandchildren lived in the same house with him, so these letters were directed to all his little ones. He describes two battles filling in many details absent from his earlier letters. I know from my father that Daniel told his grandchildren these stories many times. In these letters he sets those stories to paper.

The last letter was written when Daniel was 83 years old, 3 years before he died. He had recently been working with his original letters and writing out his memoir. He views the experience with the wisdom acquired during a long and good life.

I am Daniel's great-granddaughter. My father, Wallace B. Kemp, and his cousin, Richard H. Beyer were instrumental in preserving this history for the family. If I remember family lore correctly, Richard Beyer brought one of his secretaries home to make typescripts of Daniel's handwritten letters from 1862/3, and to type up a memoir he wrote subsequently. This secretary was an extremely good typist. It appears to me that one original and 2 carbons were made of each letter. I am old enough to remember typing with carbons and the importance of accuracy. There was no computer program correcting transpositions in those days. Her work was remarkable, although not entirely error-free. A mimeographed copy of the memoir was created and copies distributed throughout the family. Somehow a complete set of typescripts and the original letters ended up with my Father. Dick Beyer ended up with some handwritten memories and one of the letters to the grandchildren. My father and Dick Beyer donated the handwritten letters and manuscripts to the Buffalo and Erie County Historical Society Library (BECHS). BECHS has been a very good steward of these materials. There are 2 letters presented here of which I have the only copy.

Sometime in his last years of his life, my father gave me several thick accordion files of family history. They were chock full of photos and papers that several generations had been unable to throw out. When I finally began sorting though things I found the typescripts of Daniel's Civil War letters. I began typing them on the computer in order to be able to share copies with my sister and cousins, and all of our children. In the process I became quite fond of Daniel. Although 22 years separated the last day of his life from the first day of mine, I came to know Daniel through these letters. In other family correspondence several mentions are made of Daniel's interest in publishing his story. He says this, himself, in the last letter here presented. The World Wide Web makes "publishing" a much easier proposition than it was in the early decades of the 20th century. Thus I have put together this website to share Daniel's story as he wished. I'm sure it will mainly be of interest to Daniel's descendents. However, there may be some historians and educators who find these letters of interest as well.

I used the typescripts to create my initial computer files. As I typed, I could tell that words and sentences were missing here and there. I sent off for photocopies of all the material at BECHS, and used those to correct my initial files. I have taken some liberties in transcribing. I have added punctuation and broken very long letters into more paragraphs than are present in the originals. I have added a missing letter or omitted a repeated word (i.e. the the). I have not changed the meaning of what Daniel wrote; I have simply edited for readability. I have also embedded images. The United States Naval Historical Center has photographs and other images of many of the boats. The New York Public Library Digital Gallery and the Library of Congress have many photographs, lithographs, engravings and other art work from the period.

Creating these web pages took far more time that I initially anticipated. I have enjoyed the unusual experience, however, of getting to know a long dead ancestor. Because of this experience I can truly say that I am Daniel's affectionate great-granddaughter.