Notes from my Knapsack 12-18-2025
Jeff Gill
"We done all for your husband we could"
___
Theresa Reid was born in Madison Township, east of Newark, in 1841. By all accounts, she was familiarly known as "Thersey," likely a childhood nickname that stuck.
When she was eighteen she married Evan Jones, a Welshman about the same age who had emigrated with his family to Ohio in 1853; they had three children, two sons and a daughter, in fairly short order, and possibly even before the third child was born Evan Jones went off to war with the Thirty-first Ohio Volunteer Infantry, his younger brother John Paul Jones serving in the same unit.
Their regiment was part of the Army of the Cumberland in the west; history tends to center the Army of the Potomac and the Civil War closer to Washington & Richmond, but the western campaigns from Shiloh to Vicksburg, from the Cumberland valley to the gates of Atlanta, were where a majority of Licking County soldiers served.
Evan and John fought across Tennessee, at Chickamauga where both were wounded, and in the siege of Chattanooga before the push into Georgia. Most of us know about the burning of Atlanta from "Gone With the Wind," and then the famous "March to the Sea" under General Sherman's command, local lad that William Tecumseh Sherman was. The march was an attempt to decisively sever the Confederacy's supply lines, burning a swath of farmlands and plantations all the way to Savannah, and it is generally noted as a complete Union victory, and devastation for the South.
There were, however, some Union casualties. Thersey Jones, 161 years ago this week, would get a letter from a relative stranger, just before Christmas 1864.
MILLEDGEVILLE, GEORGIA, December, 17, 1864.
Mrs. Thersay F. Jones: It is under peculiar circumstances that I drop you a line. On the twenty-fourth of last month, while Sherman's army (or a part of it) was in this place, Mr. John Jones came to my house and desired me to take his sic brother (Evan Jones) and take care of him, as he was very sick and not able to be carried any farther. In humanity, my wife and self agree to take him and nurse him the best we could, though we were badly situated to do so, for the army had taken everything we possessed, except our dwelling house. They killed every chicken, every hog, and drove off every cow, took all my corn, and eat up every potato, pulled down and burned all the out-buildings; but notwithstanding all this, we done the very best we could for your husband, and we don't think he was in want of medicine, food, or attention, that he did not get. He had camp diarrhœa and fever, and died on the twenty-ninth day of November, 1864. He was prepared to die, and only regretted leaving his wife and children. The day before he died, some of the medicine his physician left for him gave out. I went immediately to see the Confederate post surgeon, Dr. Bratton, who is a nice man and good physician; he came forthwith to see him, and left medicine with directions, and gave every necessary attention, but told us he was too near gone to be saved. Our town was so badly used up and everything destroyed it was with difficulty I procured his burial. The post surgeon sent me help and buried him not far from my house near where Sherman's army buried some of their dead. You may never know with any certainty, but I say to you as a truth, we done all for your husband we could. I would write more if it was allowed to pass.
Respectfully,
W. A. Williams
It is perhaps no surprise that, following the war, Thersey married her husband's brother John, and they had a child themselves as they raised Evan's three. They had almost forty years together; Thersey outlived John, and had a third marriage to a Knox County widower whom she also survived, finally buried next to John in 1913 on her death at age 72.
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; he's fascinated by these insights into everyday life long ago and hopes you are, too. Tell him what tales intrigue you at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack77 on Threads or Bluesky.
Jeff Gill
"We done all for your husband we could"
___
Theresa Reid was born in Madison Township, east of Newark, in 1841. By all accounts, she was familiarly known as "Thersey," likely a childhood nickname that stuck.
When she was eighteen she married Evan Jones, a Welshman about the same age who had emigrated with his family to Ohio in 1853; they had three children, two sons and a daughter, in fairly short order, and possibly even before the third child was born Evan Jones went off to war with the Thirty-first Ohio Volunteer Infantry, his younger brother John Paul Jones serving in the same unit.
Their regiment was part of the Army of the Cumberland in the west; history tends to center the Army of the Potomac and the Civil War closer to Washington & Richmond, but the western campaigns from Shiloh to Vicksburg, from the Cumberland valley to the gates of Atlanta, were where a majority of Licking County soldiers served.
Evan and John fought across Tennessee, at Chickamauga where both were wounded, and in the siege of Chattanooga before the push into Georgia. Most of us know about the burning of Atlanta from "Gone With the Wind," and then the famous "March to the Sea" under General Sherman's command, local lad that William Tecumseh Sherman was. The march was an attempt to decisively sever the Confederacy's supply lines, burning a swath of farmlands and plantations all the way to Savannah, and it is generally noted as a complete Union victory, and devastation for the South.
There were, however, some Union casualties. Thersey Jones, 161 years ago this week, would get a letter from a relative stranger, just before Christmas 1864.
MILLEDGEVILLE, GEORGIA, December, 17, 1864.
Mrs. Thersay F. Jones: It is under peculiar circumstances that I drop you a line. On the twenty-fourth of last month, while Sherman's army (or a part of it) was in this place, Mr. John Jones came to my house and desired me to take his sic brother (Evan Jones) and take care of him, as he was very sick and not able to be carried any farther. In humanity, my wife and self agree to take him and nurse him the best we could, though we were badly situated to do so, for the army had taken everything we possessed, except our dwelling house. They killed every chicken, every hog, and drove off every cow, took all my corn, and eat up every potato, pulled down and burned all the out-buildings; but notwithstanding all this, we done the very best we could for your husband, and we don't think he was in want of medicine, food, or attention, that he did not get. He had camp diarrhœa and fever, and died on the twenty-ninth day of November, 1864. He was prepared to die, and only regretted leaving his wife and children. The day before he died, some of the medicine his physician left for him gave out. I went immediately to see the Confederate post surgeon, Dr. Bratton, who is a nice man and good physician; he came forthwith to see him, and left medicine with directions, and gave every necessary attention, but told us he was too near gone to be saved. Our town was so badly used up and everything destroyed it was with difficulty I procured his burial. The post surgeon sent me help and buried him not far from my house near where Sherman's army buried some of their dead. You may never know with any certainty, but I say to you as a truth, we done all for your husband we could. I would write more if it was allowed to pass.
Respectfully,
W. A. Williams
It is perhaps no surprise that, following the war, Thersey married her husband's brother John, and they had a child themselves as they raised Evan's three. They had almost forty years together; Thersey outlived John, and had a third marriage to a Knox County widower whom she also survived, finally buried next to John in 1913 on her death at age 72.
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; he's fascinated by these insights into everyday life long ago and hopes you are, too. Tell him what tales intrigue you at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack77 on Threads or Bluesky.
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