Edward M. Hayhurst correspondence and other materials
Color guard of the 23rd Ohio Volunteer Infantry with the national colors of their regiment, ca. 1863-1865. (http://www.ohiocivilwar150.org/)
In honor of Memorial Day and all the veterans who have died for our country, L. Tom Perry Special Collections is pleased to announce the availability of a new digitized collection: Edward M. Hayhurst correspondence and other materials (MSS 7928). This collection contains correspondence between Edward M. Hayhurst and various members of his family, including his father, mother, brothers, and grandparents. The letters mostly relate to his service in the Union army (Company E, 124th regiment, Ohio Infantry) during the Civil War, and date from between June 1862 and September 1865. The collection also includes discs and print-outs of typescripts, photographs and other biographical information, his certificate of disability (April 1864), and assorted family history papers and clippings, approximately 1905-1938.
Edward Miller Hayhurst was born on December 20, 1842, to Louisa W. Miller and Isaac Wiggins Hayhurst, a Baptist preacher and school master of Marlton, New Jersey. When of age, Hayhurst was trained as a carpenter and joiner.
General Charles C. Gilbert (1822-1903)
On October 12, 1862, Hayhurst enlisted as a Private in the Union Army, and became a member of Company E of the 124th Ohio Volunteer Infantry for a term of three years. By the time of his discharge after the Civil War ended, Hayhurst had risen to Sergeant. He served as Head Quarters Clerk under General C. C. Gilbert, March to May 1863; as Color Bearer, August 1863 to May 1864; and as Company Clerk from about May 1863 to June 1864 (battle of Kennesaw Mountain), until he caught typhoid fever and spent the rest of the war recuperating from the resulting ulcers.
During the course of his active service, Hayhurst’s unit was involved in campaigns at Thompson’s Station, Spring Hill, Tullahoma, Knoxville (relieving Burnside’s Army, under siege by Longstreet), Strawberry Plains, Dandridge, and Chattanooga, Tenn.; and at Chickamauga, Poe’s Tavern, Lee and Gordon’s Mills, Brown’s Ferry, Ringgold, Orchard Knob, Missionary Ridge, Rocky Face Ridge/Dalton, Resaca, Adairsville, Kingston, Cassville, Dallas/New Hope Church, Allatoona Hills, Marietta, and Kenesaw Mountain, Georgia. Hayhurst was mustered out while in the hospital at Camp Dennison, Cincinnati, Ohio, on May 18, 1865.
He married Ella Evalina Weeks in Jackson, Kansas City, Missouri on September 18, 1870, and had two children, Paul and Miriam. During the course of his life (besides his time in the service), Hayhurst lived in Elyria, Ohio; Fredonia, New York; Boston, Massachussetts; Fayetteville, Arkansas; Waco, Texas; St. Joseph, Missouri; and Denver, Colorado. He died in Denver on February 2, 1923, and was buried at Crown Hill Cemetery in Wheatridge, Colorado.