Michigan in the Civil War
O'Harrow family
The papers of this Lenawee County, Mich., family include one letter of Edwin W. O'Harrow, of Fabius, Mich. He enlisted in Company G, 25th Michigan Infantry, Aug. 8, 1862, and died of disease at Wheatland, Mich., Sept. 7, 1863. He wrote one letter to his mother (Feb. 27, 1863) from a camp toward Nashville, tells her about the men being reported for burning up railroad ties for wood in their stoves; on being on post guard for two hours on and four hours off; and on picket guard with six or eight men who take turns on watch, building shanties to shelter them in bad weather. He also said that rebels took a freight train near Nashville "loaded with government mules and they burned up the train mules and all." They likewise took a steamboat on the river, threw the government property into the river, then paroled the boat and the sixteen soldiers aboard. Since the President made his proclamation "the rebels are ten times as thick as before." Where last winter they could not raise even one company, they can now raise ten men to one before the proclamation. There is much sickness in the regiment.