"William Elisha Stoker: A Texas Farmer’s Civil War" p. “Plant lots of vegetables,” he instructed Betty, claiming that once he returned home his family would “see some of the powerfulest eating” because he was “nearley perrished out for something good to eat.” He claimed he only wanted “to let know how soldiers had to live.” One issue that the young farmer mentioned repeatedly in his letters was the lack of good food.
Whenever William Stoker wrote home, he did not hide the harsh reality of army life. He told his wife Betty that even General Walker had admitted they had “done well to come out with any men at all.” Merely a young private, Stoker didn’t fully appreciate the larger strategic picture, but he knew the situation was bad for his side.
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Yet the result was a major engagement at Milliken’s Bend and then a series of smaller skirmishes across northern Louisiana –none of which succeeded in preventing the Union takeover of the Mississippi. Confederate generals decided to employ Walker’s Texas Division as part of a desperate effort to stop the Union campaign to seize Vicksburg, the last remaining Rebel stronghold on the Mississippi. But that changed dramatically in early June 1863. 4įor thirteen months, Stoker’s military experience consisted mostly of marching. I have wished lots of times that I had your likeliness taken and brought with me.” I am afraid you and her your features I will forget.
You wrote that she was as smart and as pretty as ever. “When you write fill a sheet every time if you can and cant think of nothing get Priscilla to say some thing and write it. He desperately wanted to hear from his young daughter Priscilla: While stuck in camp, Stoker’s thoughts turned repeatedly to his family in east Texas. Stoker’s Texas company marched to Arkansas over the summer of 1862, arriving by September, but they did not actually receive combat rifles until November. His letters suggest that he was conscripted into service. The Confederate government authorized a draft in February 1862 and Stoker entered Company H of the 18th Texas Infantry in May. Yet it appears that William Elisha Stoker was not among the 25,000 Texans who volunteered for service as the war started.
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