This is a day by day journal written by Jesse
Cheuvront from Jun 10, 1861, to December 9, 1862. This was the period
of time he spent in the 3d Virginia Volunteer Infantry (Union) during the
Civil War.
Jesse Cheuvront was born November 18, 1829
and died September 1, 1863 - nine months after his discharge from
the Army. According to a genealogy done by Rev. Wesley L. Cheuvront,
Jesse died of Erysipelas*, a disease of which
he appears to have contracted during his service time. This was apparently
the basis for his discharge from the Army because many journal entries
are complaints of "feeling unwell". The latter portions of the journal
are very difficult to read - Jesse's's handwriting appears to have declined
and become labored and cramped starting midwinter of 1862. During
this period, the letter structure became less clear, the words smaller
and the pen pressure appears to have varied considerably. Additionally
the entries contain incomplete and disjointed thoughts.
I have made every attempt to maintain the integrity
of content and meaning of the entries as written. The journal is
transcribed word for word, leaving the original word tense and use.
The only concessions I made was to correct for spelling where a correction
was possible and the addition of hyphens where thoughts appear to have
changed. The journal contained no periods, commas or other punctuation
in the entire eighty-seven handwritten pages. The names of places
and persons may still be incorrect, but are as written. Many of the
places that I could locate on maps have been spelled according to modern
map locations. The changes indicated above were done only to afford
readability lacking in the original.
~Ray Davis
20 January 1997
......
[
*Funk & Wagnell's defines ERYSIPELAS as a contagious and infectious
skin disease
characterized
by inflammation, redness and swelling. Untreated, erysipelas can
extend
into deeper tissues, with bacterial invasion of the blood stream, which
can be fatal.
Often caused by infection of wounds, Erysipelas is sometimes epidemic,
as it was in 11th-century France, where it was called Saint Anthony's
Fire. ]
from the WLCheuvront text:
(s/o CALEB, b Feb 10, 1792-May 15, 1865 and Rebecca Covert, b. Uniontown
PA Nov. 18, 1829; died Sept. 1, 1863, age 33 years. He was
a physician and surgeon, unusually successful in the treatment of dyphtheria
that was once considered a scourge. [He died on the way to Wilmington,
OH., where he'd planned to marry his cousin's daughter, Virginia Darbyshire,
a granddaughter of Ann Covert Darbyshire, a wealthy brick and tile producer
in Wilmington. He caught Erysipelas en route [sic], "a contagious
skin disease caused by streptococci which causes vesticular and bulbous
lesions"]. He became sick upon arrival in Wilmington and died before
he could be married. He was buried in Wilmington, OH, where a small
marble slab marks his grave. [He had been a soldier in the Federal Army
of the Civil War, and W.L. Cheuvront notes that Will H. Cheuvront had in
his possession the "fine hacksaw" with which Dr. Jesse amputated the leg
of one Manley Morgan, whose leg had been crushed by a log.] |
