This week, we were given the option to practice using StoryMapJS and TimeLineJS. With these tools, I decided to begin working on a project that is very important to me personally, and that I am considering for my HIST485.

In December 2023, I was given the task of transcribing the diary of 2nd Lt. Artemas Stewart of Co. F of the 111th Regiment of New York Volunteers by my local historical society in Adair County, Missouri. After the transcription was made, the historical society planned to sell the diary, as it did not fit the scope of their collection. I told the Board of Directors that I was interested, and last year they made the decision to gift it to me. I am incredibly grateful for this and am currently planning on updating/editing my previous transcription, as well as scanning the original diary using the Simpson Library’s COBRA scanner.

This diary was written between November 19, 1862, and February 10, 1863. At the time he started writing it, Artemas had been in the army for 3 months and was 16 years old.

Though his diary begins later, he would have been among those surrendered at Harper’s Ferry in September 1862, one month after enlisting. The regiment was then moved to Camp Douglas at Chicago before being ordered back to Washington, D.C.

The section I chose to use for this assignment was written between November 27 and November 30, 1862, during the regiment’s journey from Chicago to Washington, D.C., beginning with the first noted town. The StoryMapJS below shows the towns mentioned by Stewart in his diary, as well as a transcription of his entries from these dates.

The TimeLineJS below features historical railroad maps showing the exact route taken by the 111th Regiment. It also features the same diary entries as the StoryMapJS.

Though the diary ends in February 1863, we know that the 111th Regiment fought at the Battle of Gettysburg in the summer of 1863 and was part of the Bristoe and Mine Run campaigns of that October through December. They also would have fought at the Battle of the Wilderness and at Spottsylvania Court House, both in May 1864. Two days after Spottsylvania, Stewart was promoted to 2nd Lieutenant.

Artemas Stewart was killed in action on June 16th, 1864, the first day of the Battle of Petersburg. He was 18 years old. He was one of 150 enlisted men from the 111th Regiment to have been killed in action during the Civil War.

I was 17 when I started transcribing his diary and finished the first edition of the transcription 3 days after I turned 18. This boy was my age and preparing for war – had already experienced war. I will admit that I grew incredibly attached to learning more about his experience, even though I am not a military historian.

His diary shows that he was just a normal person. He wrote about being bored on days that the regiment didn’t drill, and having to do laundry. While he was in Chicago, he went twice to see the same play with other boys from camp. On Dec. 6th, it snowed outside of Fairfax, and he brought stray kitten into his tent. He sent and received letters to and from his family in New York, as well as his brother, John, who was also enlisted and serving in Virginia. He wrote the names of his friends in the back of his journal when they stood guard at the picket line together. Artemas’ journal is incredibly mundane, but incredibly special because he is the only person to have experienced that time exactly as he did, and his writing has somehow survived nearly 160 years, at least 20 of which were in a small county historical society in Missouri. And now, Artemas’ diary has returned to the place where it was largely written, and where he spent much of the last two years of his life – northern Virginia.

Knowledge from the whereabouts of the 111th Rgt. NYV from 111th Infantry Regiment :: New York State Military Museum and Veterans Research Center, as well as previous genealogical research.