A Letter to the Widow from Sivard's Old Calvary Outfit

Winfield Daily Courier - November 18, 1893

From Siverd's Old Cavalry.

COLUMBUS, OHIO, November 4, 1893.

Mrs. Hugh H. Siverd, Winfield, Kansas.

DEAR MADAM: Words are inadequate to express our great sorrow at the unexpected death of your dear husband and our loved comrade.

Next to you and your children, we feel this stroke keenest. Four years of hard service through the most active campaigns of the war for the Union endeared him to us by the strongest earthly tie that unites man to man. When men face death together on the field of battle, their lives are cemented and they become identified in sympathy, in love, and in feelings more closely than by any other association.

Thus we were joined to Hugh H. Siverd, and the more so because he was ever active, bold, determined, and fearless in the cause for which he fought.

Had he died on the field of battle, we would have mourned his loss, but we could have been more easily reconciled because such would have been only the fate which might come to any brave soldier, but to have safely passed through the trials and hardships of war, to be shot to death in his own city and at his own home by the hands of an outlaw adds a bitter sting to our sorrow.

Our hearts go out in sympathy to you and to your children with a depth we cannot express; we imagine your sorrow and sorrow with you; accept our condolence from the hearts of comrades.

Our hearts with yurs are made lighter in this great bereavement because he died doing his duty at his post defending the right; and because his integrity and his worth was known and appreciated by all good people in the community in which he lived.

Allow us through you to heartily thank the good citizens of Winfield and Cowley County for the acts and words of kindness and love with which they have so fully expressed their appreciation of Hugh and their sympathy for his family. We do assure you that these are the sentiments of all of the members of the First Ohio Vol. Cavalry, feebly expressed.

It will afford us much gratification if at your convenience, you will write to us and give the exact date of Hugh's death and such particulars as you may be pleased to mention; also the name and age of each of his children.

We are interested in knowing more of you and yours.

Hoping and trusting that God and good friends may assist and sustain you, we remain ever truly your comrades.

JOHN W. CHAPIN, President; W. L. CURRY, Secretary.

Society First Ohio Vol. Cavalry.