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American Civil War & UK History
**American Civil War & UK History Podcast**
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American Civil War & UK History
Civil War-Civil War life: Memoir Of Samuel Henry Bradley - with Katherine Driscoll.
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Civil War-Civil War life Memoir Of Samuel Henry Bradley - with Katherine Driscoll
In this episode of the American Civil War & UK History Podcast, host Daz is joined by Katherine Driscoll, the editor of her great-great-grandfather’s memoirs.
Some time ago, Katherine stumbled across her ancestor’s fascinating memoir and decided to have it transcribed and published as a readable book. In this episode, Katherine shares the story behind discovering the memoir, the process of bringing it to life, and the remarkable insight it provides into her ancestor’s experiences.
The Book
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To keep up to date with everything American Civil War and UK history, head over to our website ACW and UKhistory.com. And remember, this podcast has a PowerPoint presentation that goes along with the show. So if you would like to see the PowerPoint presentation, then head over to our YouTube channel at American Civil War and UK History. Cheers. Hello everyone, I'm Dad, and welcome to American Civil War and UK History Podcast. This presentation is available as a video on our YouTube channel or as a podcast from wherever you get your podcast from. And if you're watching on YouTube, remember to hit that subscribe button and give us a big thumbs up. And check out our website www.acwandukhistory.com where you'll find podcasts, blog posts, and links to all of our social media pages. The link is available in the podcast description. Joining me today is editor Catherine Driscoll. Welcome, Catherine. It certainly is. And uh so we're going to be talking about um one of your ancestors, and uh so the the the name of the um the book it's a memoir, is Civil War, Civil Life, Samuel Henry Bradley, a memoir. So this uh so I take it that Henry was a direct descendant of yours, is that correct?
SPEAKER_01Yes, he is my uh great-grandfather, oh who I never met.
SPEAKER_00Okay, yes. So okay, would you like to tell us a little bit about who was Samuel Henry Bradley and where does his and why does his story matter? And again, how is he related to you?
SPEAKER_01Okay, um Samuel Henry Bradley was my great-grandfather, and he um I never met him, I didn't know much about him. Um, I did at one point uh here a long time ago, I think I was probably a teenager that he was in the Civil War. And um uh I didn't pay much attention to it at that time. Um I he was from Oleanne, New York, and my grandparents lived in Oleanne, New York, his uh his daughter. Um, and um I went to Oleanne, New York from time to time to visit them, but I never heard a whole lot about Samuel Henry Bradley um and his wife Kate. Um, but I was the youngest of four kids, so I think that by that time they maybe got tired of telling the story. Um so about um 25 years ago, my father died. My his father was a uh a general, uh retired general in Army Air Corps, and um my father went to West Point and was um retired colonel. And as time went by, you know, I still didn't hear much, I didn't hear the story. Uh, but when my grand when my father died about 25 years ago, and we were cleaning out his house, I was the only one that lived close to my parents. Um, and so all the rest of my siblings had flown in, and so I ended up with a lot of paperwork that was from my father's safe, not knowing, not caring that much because I was, you know, at then a young mother, maybe a anyway, a mother. And um so I um I put all this, you know, I looked through it a little bit, but I put it all in my safe, all this paperwork. And um as time went by, sometimes I would look a little bit at it and I would see uh there was a man um a um little thing like this that was said Samuel Henry Bradley that had pages in it. Um it also there was also other things my father had saved. Uh so um the last this past um about fall, I was going through my safe once again, and um I looked farther into the uh all this stuff in my father that I gotten from my father's house. And I don't know if you can see this, but this was the original manuscript that was um he probably dictated to his wife. I know he he told the story to his wife. I don't know how it actually got in some type of print. It's very fragile. This this paperwork, it was, I'm sure, done in the 18 um hundreds, and um um it says regulations of army life. That's what this says, and um so then I um I realized that this was what this paperwork was too. Uh it has Samuel Henry Bradley, 1843 to 1909, that's when he died. Um and I happened to be mentioning it to some friends, and I happen to have one of those friends ask me if I I actually had the manuscript. I said yes. He said, What do you want to do with it? And I said, I know I have to do something with it because after my the generation, my my generation, my brothers and sisters, this story's gonna die because it's nothing in a good, it's not written in some type of form that can um stand up to time. So um uh he was a publisher and he said, Well, let me read it and see what I think we might be able to do with it. He read it, he loved it, he thought it was fantastic. Of course, of course, I have read it now a few times. And um uh this story is great. Uh I want my kids to know about it, I want my grandkids to know about it, I want it to be in a form that they can hold on to, have somewhere uh it's not in a little, I mean, this is disintegrating the original, and uh I wouldn't actually let anybody have this um because it's falling apart, and um it's kind of uh where we are right now. We have the book, and it's a fabulous book, and in the meantime, uh my other um sister, one of my sisters in Pennsylvania, had uh boxes of other information about my grandparents, um, my great-grandfather Samuel and his wife, and tons and tons of information about them in writing. My uh his his uh Kate, his her name was Catherine, I was named after her, I later found out, um, seems to be quite a writer. And um, and she wrote a little bio about him. She wrote about his life afterwards in other paperwork that we my sister found in her basement in a box. My sister is legally blind, she can't see anymore, but um, with the help of her daughters, she's they sent me a lot of information about my family, which I have dug into, read. Um it's just it's almost overwhelming, but it's at the same time, it's an absolute thrill to me because I've I feel like I've done something for my family, my kids. And uh the story is remarkable. It's what it is to me, it's a human story. He's actually telling what his day-to-day was like, what it felt like. There's absolutely the fact that I'm alive is overwhelming to me because he almost died many times. And the fact that he found humor in the situations that he was in, it makes me know why in my family we find a lot of humor in things. Uh his ability, his honesty is over is amazing. His um but it also lets me, I realize now, my grandfather who was a general, my his the uh my father who was a colonel, I I understand where our roots came from. From this man, and I've learned a lot about his father also, and uh in the writings that my sisters told me, and it's I'm just I'm just thrilled, and I I have a lot more to go through still of all this, and I'm no young person anymore.
SPEAKER_00Awesome. And so when you found the uh manuscripts, um is was it hard to read or was it fairly easy to read? And what was the editing process like for you?
SPEAKER_01Well, it wasn't uh we uh the book is word by word what is in this uh about his uh time, the Civil War. Um it's word by word. We didn't change any of the words. And the um uh print is very tiny, you know. I I don't even know how they did that in the 18th. Uh and of course this is um very yellowed. But uh no, we didn't um we didn't change it's word by word his memoirs that was written by his wife, Kate um Easton Bradley.
SPEAKER_00So basically he dictated to her and she wrote it down for him, is that right?
SPEAKER_01That is what I believe. Yes, you know, I wasn't there, but uh after reading a lot more of her writings, uh she was a beautiful writer, and uh um I I don't know exactly what the process for was.
SPEAKER_00Oh, but it's fantastic that you've got that that uh window into his his Civil War experience. So that's what I'd like to talk to you about now. Is uh so tell us about his civil war and his experiences. Now, was he in the cavalry or was he in the infantry?
SPEAKER_01Cavalry. Uh and um it was when the first um they first became well he was he got in the war a couple years after it had started. Uh he wasn't allowed to go in uh at first because he had to help his father with the business that they had in Olean, New York, which was um in arrears, as it as they say. And um so when he did go in, that was when part of the things that he writes, the cavalry first became a different division than other things, uh, groups in the war. So he was one of the first cavalry um battalions, is that the right word? Um and um he talks a lot about um his horse or his horses or adventures with things that happen with his horse. Uh he tells about uh laying on the the ground uh using his horse as a shield. Um he talks about um something I never knew that that the ground was littered with dead bodies, but his a horse will not step on a dead body. He talks about um his horse that would not move, and he hit him with his fist behind his ear, and the horse this is was his very first day, and his horse reared up and hit him in the nose, and um I think it's you know Calvary was very important, and um these men couldn't have done it without their horses.
SPEAKER_00And uh suppose they build up a big uh quite a big relationship with with their horses, uh seeing as how they spend so much time with them, don't they?
SPEAKER_01Yes. Yes. His very first story in the book, which I love, is um the first day that he is now in his um in the cavalry, and everyone's uh is told what they're going to be doing in this particular battle, his very first day, and they gave him the job of holding the horses while the men marched in. And he said that he did not want to do that, that he wanted to find out if he had the courage to go into war. So he traded with someone else to let the person who's already been in the war for so long to hold the horses because he said he wanted to go into battle to find out if he had the courage to do it. I just find that almost um I can't imagine someone doing that. A young boy. He was at this time, I think he was probably 20 years old, maybe 19.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And wanting to find out if he had the courage to go in, and knowing that when he did that, he he may be killed.
SPEAKER_00It gives me chills when I think about um what he did for does he actually mention which battles he was involved in, or that uh is that mentioned?
SPEAKER_01Yes, he he mentions every battle, you know, by name. He mentions the different um uh commanders of those battles that he was with. Um he um has little stories about them a little bit.
SPEAKER_00Um I right in saying that one of them might be um the famous um j uh General Custer.
SPEAKER_01Yes, yes. He uh he did um, you know, he he one day he found himself that he was uh under command of General Custard, although he didn't know it was General General Custard at that at that time. And um he he writes that he thought that General, he wrote that he thought that lieutenant, so he must have thought that he was a lieutenant, um what looked like poor timber of a man, which I didn't I had no idea what does he mean by timber. Well uh his statue, his uh demean demeanor was not that of a commander, he thought. And of course at that time General Custard must have been a very young man also. Um but um uh you know as time went by and Custard uh became qu became quite a hero hero for uh uh we Americans, probably just the way he looked.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah, um very famous uh uh uh cavalry commander, absolutely. Um so okay, so also I believe he talks a little bit about camp life, doesn't he? And uh so what what was camp life like for him? Um obviously, because as we know, a lot of these soldiers, uh you know, camps are not very nice places for civil war soldiers. There's a lot of disease and and gambling and drinking and all sorts of stuff going on. So does he talk about that in the book?
SPEAKER_01Well, no, he doesn't talk about gambling or drinking. Um I'm sure there was a lot of that. Um one thing he talks about, which um really to me seems he talks about some of the the his fellow uh cavalrymen. He talks about the relationships he has with them, the friendships he has with them. Um another thing he talks about is um I was just reading yesterday, um his clothing. That the clothing was just falling apart uh for everyone in the camp, and somehow they got um and it was filled with vermin, he says. In other words, just filled with bugs. And um, so somehow they got new clothing, they got new um uniforms, and he said within no time at all, it was just they were just filled with with uh vermin again. He they lived like that, they lived in camps that were wet. They he talks about being on the ground for three or four days, uh just sopping wet and cold. Um, and um he talks a little bit about uh finding friends, running into other uh soldiers that he knew from Olean, and um thinking one of his uh good friends from Olean had been killed. Uh that was one of the very first battles he was in. Um, and then um about 15 years later he saw him again. He was he he was alive and um many stories about his comrades, you know, and the friendship they had. And the fun, you know, he talks about funny things and and you know he's not all doom and gloom. Even though to me it would be something that uh I can't imagine you know, my my grandfather was in two wars, my father was in at least two wars, Korean, World War II uh and um I can't imagine going in those conditions going out one day after another after another, knowing he felt like he writes that he he knew that he was going to die, but not today, he felt like whatever battle he was in, he thought, this is not the day I'm going to die. But he did feel like that he was not gonna live through this war.
SPEAKER_00Wow, and you said that uh a few times he he you know, like you said, felt like he wasn't gonna survive. Now, did he uh get any uh injuries or or or was he wounded at any point during any of these uh battles?
SPEAKER_01Uh he was particularly wounded one time uh when a uh I don't know if they called it bullets back then, um went through his finger, through his lungs. Um he uh he thought it was not, you know, he wasn't all that injured. Of course, he was taken into a um little what not a hospital at that point, but um he his first thought was oh, here I'm gonna get um two weeks off. He was excited about that. But then as he went into the hospital, he found out he was more injured than he thought. Um and his finger was actually his his um, I think it was his baby finger was blown off. Uh, but it had it had when they got him, it had gone into his his uh uniform, the finger, and they found it. And they were going to put it back to put it put it back on, which they were able to do. The doctors suggested that they don't do that. But he wanted his finger put back on, and uh at the same time he had uh the bullet had gone through his lungs. So he was uh in a hospital for quite a while, then I I believe he got a little bit of leave to go back to Oleanne. Uh but he wanted uh after that time, he wanted to go back. You know, I I need to go back to my uh to my uh cavalry group and my uh divisions, and he went back.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and I suppose they build up a camaraderie with each other, don't they? And that's why I suppose he wanted to go back, even though, like you said, um, you know, we can't ever imagine what it was like for a soldier to be in these conditions, but I suppose in that those horrible conditions they find friendship and find a way to to laugh about things, I suppose, don't they? But yeah.
SPEAKER_01Yes, they do.
SPEAKER_00Oh, sorry, carry on.
SPEAKER_01At the very end of the war, uh, he came, uh, they weren't, you know, the war was ending, the um uh everyone was being he was in charge of mustering, uh, I think sending people back home. He anyway, he came down with typhoid fever, and there was 11 of them that was isolated with this typhoid fever. And uh he said that the the room was black with flies, and the flies were um being isolated. He said the flies were eating all of their food, and um uh they were skin and they became skin and bones. Um and uh out of those 11 people, he was the only one that lived. Um he had uh a woman who was in the area who was from Olean, New York, who heard, saw his name on uh the list of people that were in this isolation, realized who he was, and although she wasn't a nurse, she went in because she knew the Bradley family, she went in and she took care of him every day. And um uh it says in the writing that he was in a coma for six weeks, and uh then his father heard about him and came and and got him and took him to a uh uh hotel before they got him to a hospital. And uh the fact that he he lived, he was the only one that lived through that to me is well that's why I'm here, you know.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it's very powerful.
SPEAKER_01He had lived, we would be here.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, we'd be we'd be here telling the story, yeah.
SPEAKER_01No, no.
SPEAKER_00Okay, so that that was his civil war experiences, but what what what kind of effect does a civil war have on him once the war finishes and he sort of settles back into so does he get married? What happens there?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, he uh his uh wife uh Kate was 16 years younger than him. So uh I think he uh convalesced for a long time. They said he still had bouts of uh diarrhea and sickness for years. Uh but um uh uh he he met his wife, Kate, who and uh they got married. Uh he lived an extremely honorable life afterwards. Uh he was um uh he got into he worked in his father's business, which his father actually had a lumber business, then he got into the standard oil business, which Oleanne had a lot of uh oil um, which I never knew about. I never knew Oleanne was an oil area when I'd go to visit. But uh in his writings he talks about uh he had a lot of good friends that were in the oil business and standard oil uh company, and then he also talks about when he was in the um state legislation that he realized that the standard oil company was not paying enough enough taxes. Uh and um and so he changed was able to change the um tax laws, even though he had probably very good friends in that company. His he worked to make the state of New York um properly done. Um he also uh then he he was um uh he was being bribed a little bit after the standard oral. He was being bribed by they wanted a certain uh senator to be voted in, and some people came to him with with money, uh wanting his vote, and um he said he wouldn't well he took the money, said he wouldn't do it, um was able to uh let people know that uh this corruption was going on, and um he um then gave the money to a hospital with even with the uh um I can't think of the word, but yeah, so he gave he gave the money away uh to the local, I think it was probably the Oleanne C uh hospital, and um and that person didn't get voted in. Although I think he was not liked uh by a lot of people uh in the legislation because he was so honest. Um but um he was he did care. Uh he did what was right and um all through his life, and and to me that is a piece of puzzle, excuse me, piece of puzzle that goes together with with my ancestors, because my my grandfather, who is a retired general, and his uh wife, um, and she was the daughter of Samuel Henry and and Kate, they lived in when I would visit them, they lived, they were retired, they lived in Olean. They were the most proper. Um they we, and of course, my father was in the army at that time. We as a family, when we went there, we had to be very proper children. Um they um uh we had to to me as a child, it was like we weren't allowed to wear shorts. We um had went to my grandfather's club, some special club that he belonged to. Um I I've since seen articles about the Lundberg and the Bradley families in Oleanne, as to all the um different things that they have done for uh the state and and uh it he was one of the most honest men I I have ever known, except possibly my father. You know, when I was being brought up, um we had something called the Anacode. Uh, and uh if they my parents wanted needed us to tell the truth, they would say the on a code word, which was a private word in my family, and if they did that, we had to tell the truth knowing that we weren't going to get in trouble. But the honor code was very, very um important for for my family growing up, and um, and I now see where it came from.
SPEAKER_00Now, before you actually found his story, um, did your father or your grandfather ever talk about his story to you uh before you found um I know my father did, but I was a I also know I was a a much I was probably being the youngest of four, I was eight, nine, ten, maybe, maybe up to twelve.
SPEAKER_01I don't remember, but I do remember that my dad talked about it, uh, the civil war, that I had a great, but um we didn't talk about it much. Um my grandfather, who was in World War I and II, he didn't talk much about his time. And my my father, who was in World War, my father um graduated from West Point in January 43. They let him out early to go straight into World War II. And um, so I knew about him, but I didn't know much about the story, no.
SPEAKER_00No, and so you didn't visit any battlefields or anything like that when you were a kid?
SPEAKER_01Well, we well at one point we lived in uh Pennsylvania, and at that point we did go out to see a lot of um uh different battle areas. Nice. Uh that I I moved around every uh two to three years. So um I lived all over. Uh when we were in Pennsylvania, we did go to Gettysburg and and many other, and I was um I was very interested in in that at that time. But from there we moved to Alaska for three years, so um and then we went to Washington, DC after that. So I did, of course, do a lot of uh the Washington DC monument and uh um areas there, but um I never related it to my great-grandfather. I never related uh that he was part of this somehow in my mind until I read the until I read his memoirs. And now I it's like I can't get enough of it.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. And uh so I mean there's still loads of time to visit battlefields anyway, isn't there? So, you know.
SPEAKER_01I'm excited about that because my publisher Heath uh said uh what would be a great vacation, and I totally agree with it, is to by using the book go from the in the order of hit hit the battles that he went to. And uh I really I I want to do that. I am going to go to Oleanne this this summer. Uh I haven't been there for many years, and uh um take my book to the Historical Society and visit uh Oleanne again, and I would definitely like to go to the different uh battles that he was in. I would be all for it now.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Now um I know I know you mentioned that he passed away in 1909, did you say? Um do you know where he's buried and and is that somewhere you can visit as well?
SPEAKER_01Uh yes, he's in the um a graveyard in uh Olean, and so are my um my great uh my grandfather and uh his uh Samuel's um daughter, my grandmother, or both all of them are married. I have actually I have some other uh their other daughter, Samuel uh other daughter, um lived to be 106, and uh she is also buried there. And um so I'm gonna go back to see all that this summer. I haven't seen it for a long time. I I now have to totally different eyes of wanting to see, wanting to hear the stories. Uh the writings that I I have write pamphlets and booklets and writings from Kate and my grandmother of history going all the way back to the um uh Revolutionary War. They were amazing writers, although it's a little hard to read. I have their originals, and um I also one of Kate's relatives was on um um the Mayflower. I have the writings about that in a newspaper article. Uh the Mayflower that went to Plymouth, all this history that I didn't know about. And I I'm just so excited about it. I call my siblings all the time and say, Oh, I found out this, I found out that. Um so I'm very excited about it.
SPEAKER_00I think that's absolutely fantastic. And again, so um when when you finally got the uh the book out and you had it in your hand, what was that like for you to be able to, like you said, share the story and and know the fact that now this story will be around forever and like you said, won't be lost?
SPEAKER_01Um I'd say it's a dream come true that true that I didn't know I had that I had. Because um now that I have this book, I mean it and I have it for my kids and I have for the have it for the generations, it to me it's it's almost well, it's a gift from God, you know. I didn't ex if you if uh this time last year I knew I would have this book, I would say you're crazy. I don't even know what you're talking about. But the way it all came together so easily um is just to me, it's I hate to say the word a miracle, but it is a miracle. I'm so proud of it. I'm so proud to give it to my kids. I'm so proud for anybody to read it. You know, I personally I think everyone should read it. Um it is beautifully written, it is honestly written. Uh then the his life afterwards uh gives me it just gives swells my heart to know that this man was my great-grandfather. I wish I had met him. Uh I didn't meet um Kate either. Uh and um I found out she died in a car accident in 1934. And uh I just I just kind of breaks my heart. But um so I'm I'm um I'm just thrilled to have it. Um and I'm thrilled to talk about it too.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, absolutely.
SPEAKER_01I show it to everybody. I go around showing my book.
SPEAKER_00I think it's absolutely fantastic that you uh found this and that you've again what I love about this is this is telling the average soldier's story where it's a lot of you know narratives out there about the generals and the you know and all the the the people uh higher up, but you don't you don't often hear the narrative and the story of the the the common soldier, so that's a fantastic thing to to have. And you know, I'm so glad that you found it and you know that you cherish it so much. So yeah, Catherine, thank you so much for coming and telling us this uh fantastic story about Samuel. Now, um, where can people get the book from, um Catherine?
SPEAKER_01Okay, they can they can get the book off of Amazon. Uh it um uh just put in civil war, civil life. It comes right up, and there's a hardcap copy, soft cap copy, and uh um Kindle. And uh of course I recommend a hard copy. And uh but um it's very easy to get. I didn't know though all this was so easy um to be able to you know I'm a big um Amazon person, I get everything off of Amazon, I get books off of Amazon all the time. Um and I'm I'm just thrilled it's so easy for friends, family, um, grandkids, nieces, nephews, passing and all down the line, cousins, um I'm I'm just thrilled. Amazon.
SPEAKER_00Absolutely, and uh I will also leave a link, ladies and gentlemen, in the podcast description. So, Catherine, you haven't got to worry about that as people be able to find it through that. Um, all that's left to say at this point, Catherine, is thank you so much for giving up your morning to come and tell me the fascinating story about Samuel Bradley and your great great grandfather. It's absolutely fantastic. Thank you so much.
SPEAKER_01Well, thank you for having me.
SPEAKER_00And all that is left to say, ladies and gentlemen, is kids.
