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Civil War Diary: 'Found Plenty Of Ripe Persimmons Neare Arlington House'

graphic-for-oct.-17.jpg

(Becca Costello, WFIU/WTIU News)

157 years ago, a Hoosier from Monroe County wrote about fighting for the Union in the Civil War in a diary he kept almost daily. Peter Thomas Matthews was 20 years old when he enlisted in the army and served as a drummer in the 19th Indiana Regimental Band. 

Follow along as we publish his diary entries in real-time on the day they were written. 

Read the first entry here. Learn more about Matthews and read all former and future entries here

Editor's note: We have left Matthews' words as he recorded them, which means spelling and punctuation may not conform to modern standards.

October 17, 1861

Thursday nothing of Importance transpired up in this Date

Monday and Wednesday Battallion Drill to Day Skeleton Brigade Drill

Found Plenty of ripe Persimmons neare Arlington House here

I talked of going to mansions hill which is in sight of here and wich the Rebels left it was mounted with Stove Pipe wooden Guns and the gurf thrown up to look like great fortification

Our men are makeing a splendid fort of it—It commands a great Region of Country and why they vacated it of there own free will I cannot understand. 

Probably they expected to ave another Bull Run affair on there side this time Gen McClellan says we’ve had our last defeat.

Check back for the next entry on October 18. 

Diary entries provided by the Monroe County History Center.

Not sure what a persimmon is?

It's a fruit native to much of the eastern and middle United States:

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