Leland, Octavius, 1822-1865

Journals, 1863 October 6-1865 June 20
2 volumes, 232 pp. (total)

Leland, Octavius Augustus, 1822-1865
Rank:	Private
Regiment:	10th Minnesota Infantry Regiment. Co. C (1862-1865)
Service:	1862 August 15-1865 August 12

Background note:

Far older than average, far more proper, and assigned to duty in a Band, Octavius Leland was anything but a typical Civil War soldier. Born in Vermont in 1822, Leland and his second wife, Martha, had moved to the west in 1855, settling successively in Wisconsin, Illinois, and, in 1860, Minnesota. On August 15th, 1862, Leland enlisted for three years as a flute player in the 10th Minnesota Infantry, leaving his wife and children behind. "It nearly killed Martha and was a great sacrifice on my part," he wrote. Martha did, in fact, die in acute pain, in March, 1863, at a time when Leland was apparently stationed at Fort Snelling, Minn.

Early in October, 1863, the 10th Minnesota was sent by boat and rail to the Benton Barracks in St. Louis. En route, Leland's bag was stolen, along with all of his personal effects, clothing, flute, and money. St. Louis was comparatively light duty for a soldier, the band, when its members were not too sick to perform, played at balls, parties, parades, and other political and military functions in the city. Leland had time enough on his hands to visit a museum, featuring the "Albino Twins of black parents," and to fashion rings out of bone to sell as souvenirs to civilians and other soldiers, an activity he kept up throughout the war to earn himself extra money.

In May, 1864, Leland's regiment was sent to a series of miserable camps in Tennessee, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Alabama, taking part in some minor engagements with guerillas and with Forrest's cavalry, in the Battle of Nashville, in the defense of Memphis during Forrest's raid, and in the siege of Mobile and capture of Fort Blakely. The most notable aspect of Leland's service, however, was his long and ultimately unsuccessful bout with disease. In St. Louis, Leland had dental surgery, after which time he was never fully healthy. After July, 1864, Leland's diary is an almost unrelenting chronicle of sickness, primarily diarrhea, with hints of scurvy, dropsy, lung complaints, and ague. Too weak for duty much of the time, Leland was assigned to duty as an assistant to the ambulances in which he was placed, and in other support roles for the regiment. Despite the length and evident severity of his sickness, his requests for a discharge were repeatedly denied, and his Captain apparently believed that he was attempting to shirk his duty. That he was not is suggested by the fact that he died of the effects of chronic diarrhea on August 12th, 1865, three days before he was to be mustered out.

Leland was a proper, moral, man in a poorly disciplined regiment. The first move the 10th Minnesota made after the fall of Fort Blakely was to ransack the place, even though it "was very bloody & smelt very bad, had a great many killed & wounded," (p. 199), and the 10th was apparently asked to pay compensation for damage they had done in Cairo, Memphis, and New Orleans. Leland makes several references, mostly very brief, to drinking, gambling and carousing among the soldiers, and he seems to have held a special disdain for the regiments' officers. When boarding a transport ship in November, 1864, angered over a shortage of bread, Leland wrote, "As usual, the officers monopoly all the priveledges in the Boat, the Privates are the same as cattle or a lot of hogs & are thot no better of by people generally" (p. 155). When he pitched his tent out of line with the other, "The Col. vented his spleen on me because my tent was not in range with the rest, but said nothing to Tom Cross & 3 others whose tents were out more than mine. I supose if I would swear & drink Whiskey Smoke & chew tobacco play cards & gamble I would be as good a favorite as the rest" (p. 196).

Scope and Contents:

Leland's diary rises above the mundane in only a few instances -- particularly in a few descriptions while in barracks at St. Louis, in descriptions of his activities as a musician, his stay in Memphis and Nashville, the siege of Mobile, and of the immediate post-war period in Alabama. The diary is written in a close hand, in a spare style that allows for little elaboration or description, but since it is written daily, it provides a valuable record of the activities of a musician in the western theatre, and for the attitudes of a slightly older, somewhat more proper soldier placed in an ill-disciplined regiment. Further, the diary is a remarkable testament to the role of disease in the army, both in terms of the length and severity of sickness and its affect on one man, and in documenting the response of the authorities to an obviously chronically ill man. The tragic death of Leland

M-2312
Cat. 4/92 rsc

Link to subject index to the Octavius A. Leland Journals

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