Christie Thomas - Brother of mine: the Civil War letters of Thomas and William Christie

A Part in this Great Struggle
October 21, 1861-March 17, 1862

The Bullets Came like Hail
March 22-August 15, 1862

Your Poor Soldier Correspondent
September 21, 1862-April 8, 1863

No Glory in It
April 11-October 2, 1863

This Dull, Idle Existence
October 20, 1863-March 19, 1864

Enough Fighting to Satisfy Us
March 25-September 9, 1864

We Had a Lively Time for Awhile
September 15-May 27, 1865

Among the many collections of Civil War letters and diaries in the Minnesota Historical Society holdings, the letters of William and Thomas Christie stand apart. As a group these letters provide a detailed account of two brothers personal experiences in the war. They also tell the story of their unit, the First Minnesota Light Artillery. The war letters, however, are part of a much larger family collection beginning in the 1830s in Scotland and continuing on to the American West in the 1890s and to Turkey in the early 1900s (where Thomas became a missionary).

Most of the Civil War letters are those of William and Thomas Christie, half brothers thirteen years apart in age who held decidedly different world-views. (A third, younger brother, Alexander, or Sandy, joined the army very late in the war.) The fact that William and Thomas were in the same unit, one that took part in most of the major campaigns in the western theater of the war, adds further to their interest.

Like most Minnesota soldiers, the Christie brothers were originally from somewhere else. The family originated in Scotland, where the boys father, James, worked in the jute mills of Dundee. William was born there in 1830, the only child of Jamess first marriage. When his wife, Elizabeth Gilchrist, died in 1832, James moved to Sion Mills in County Tyrone, Ireland, leaving William in the care of his wifes parents. James remarried in 1836 to Eliza Reid, with whom he had three children: Thomas 1843, Sarah 1844, and Alexander 1846. William joined his fathers new family in 1840. In 1848, the entire Christie clan, including in-laws, made a carefully planned migration to America, ending up in Clyman Township, Dodge County, Wisconsin.

For the next ten years, the family, and particularly William, worked hard to develop their farm. Another child, David, was born to James and Eliza, but Eliza died in a subsequent childbirth in 1850, and James married neighbor Persis Noyes a few years later.

Being an important worker on the farm, William missed the opportunity afforded his younger siblings to attend a township school. Although his letters suggest he had little formal education, he was well read and familiar with the Bible, with Shakespeare, and with other British writers. His writing skills were poor, however, and William self-deprecatingly joked in his letters about his penmanship and made-up grammar and spelling. He was keenly aware of the shortfall in his education because his siblings were intelligent, even brilliant writers.

By 1855, when Williams younger brothers Thomas and Alexander were old enough to help their father farm in Wisconsin, William acquired land in Minnesota. He appears in the 1860 federal census as a farmer in St. Charles Township, Winona County, although the exact location of his farm is unknown.

William soon found that farming solo was a difficult undertaking. The market economy following the financial panic of 1857 was poor, and William probably lacked capital for animals and equipment. He also seems to have gotten himself into debt. Thomas joined him in the summer and fall of 1860 and again in 1861 to help with the harvest, but even the two working together had a tough go of it. Thomas wrote optimistic letters home, full of promise for a good wheat crop, but when their sister Sarah joined them in October 1861 to keep house, she put the family wise to the boys situation. Their shanty was the most miserable looking place ever I looked at, and Williams wheat harvest was poor and his expenses many, so you see he is pretty hard set, and then he has to buy a new stove for this is so smashed up it will not do, and buy beef and potatoes and butter for the winter for he had nothing, and there is no ploughing done. If he has any more debts I do not know. To make matters worse William had lost a legal dispute with a neighbor and owed a judgment of thirteen dollars. So hard set was he, Sarah wrote, that he was going to leave his claim and go away out west where he would never be heard of again if we had not come just when we did.