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About Samuel H. Bassitt Civil War Letters
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This final letter serves as an epilogue to Samuel Bassitt's Civil War letters.
After the Civil War, Samuel H. Bassitt returned home to live in Richland Township, Allen Co., OH. In 1868 at the age of 20, he married Mary Margaret Whipp (30 Oct 1850 - Oct 1932) who was 18 at the time. Samuel and Mary were members of the Methodist Episcopal Church. They lived near the small town of Beaverdam where he taught school, worked as a carpenter, and later farmed.1
The wanderlust in Sam that began with his Civil War experience never quite left him and eventually he abandoned his wife, leaving her to rear their nine children on her own. After they were divorced in 1895, he lived in Washington, D.C., where he worked as a clerk in the Treasury Department as chief of the clerical staff covering naval officers. He was married to Lizzie Mitchell. While he was working in Washington, he signed his correspondence "S. H. Bassitt".
Samuel's children never knew him after he left home. As his son DeWitt said, "I seen him at Grandpa's funeral. Rossie and Oak and I went up. ... Grandpa's funeral was at the house. And he was there and he was talking to Rossie and asking about his children, you know. And he said, 'Well, how about DeWitt?' 'Well', she said, 'ask him yourself - he's settin' right there beside you!' I was seventeen years old then. And I've never seen him since. And I had never seen him from the time he left home when I was seven until seventeen." 2 After Samuel died on 9 Mar 1925, he was buried in Arlington National Cemetery.
Most of Samuel's children worked in the oil fields of Allen County. Ohio during the boom years of the 1890s and later moved west to work in the oil fields of Texas, Oklahoma, and California.
Treasury Department
Office of Auditor for the War Dept.
Washington, D.C., July 22, 1899
Dear Father:
I am here in the office, and as it is fifteen minutes yet until time to commence work I have concluded to write you a few lines, a thing I have been wanting to do for a long time. We begin work at 9 o'clock in the morning and quit at 4 in the afternoon except on Saturdays when we quit at 3 o'clock
It is pretty warm here in Washington, yet I do not have to be out in the sun much.
Washington is a beautiful City and is classed as a Southern City. It has a population estimated at two hundred and seventy thousand, and seventy thousand are colored. It seems to me that there are more negroes here than that.
I am improving slowly. I had a sick spell last winter that left me in a very bad condition. I have the rheumatism, or something the matter with my shoulders, and the musles of my arms, which bothers me to the extent that I have been unable to dress and undress myself without assistance every since.
I have not doctored much for it hoping that in the course of time it would leave on its own accord. They nave been telling me that frequent bathing in the ocean would entirely relieve me. I concluded to try it and last Sunday went to Beach City on the Atlantic Ocean, and was in bothing for an hour and a half. The bottom was just splendid and we could go out at least 40 rods and did and not be in water deeper than our shoulders, which made it fine bathing. I got water in my mouth, several times and it was salty as brine.
After we came out of the water we ate our dinner and then went and lay down on the grass, in the shade, and took a good sleep. I cam home at 10 o'clock feeling tip top.
The next day I began to itch and burn, and by night I was broke out all over with blotches just like hives, and have been doeing but little else than to dig and scratch every since.
I got sun burnt wherever the sun shone on me and am now pealing off. As a result I am not much stuck on ocean bathing.
There is an insect found along the ocean beach called Chiger, and wherever it touches one it causes a spot to raise and it itches worse than any itch ever did. That was what was the trouble.
Wednesday, July 26
I will now try and finish this letter. Some days I have 50 and 60 letters to write. Last Sunday I visited the Zoo. I think it is the finest and most interesting one I ever saw. It is very large and extensive, and I think they have every specie of annumal, fowel and fish that ever existed, and some of them are very fine specimens indeed. I counted 14 coon in one tree, and not a very large tree either.
I wish you were here so you could see some of the Sights and visit the many places of interest.
I expect to go to Philadelphia, Pa., next September, to attend the National Encampment. Why can you not come there too, and then come from there here and spend a month or such matter with me. It shall not cost you one cent to stay here, and the fare will be very cheap from your place to Philadelphia.
I want you to answer this Father and tell me all the news. How your crops are, and how you are all getting along.
How is the oil excitement, and have they found oil on your farm yet?
How is the wheat and corn, and hay and hogs. It has been so long since I have been in a wheatfield, or had anything to do with any such things, that I am getting rather homesick to be with them again, and see whether it would seem natural.
I am shut up here in the office from 9 in the morning until 4 in the afternoon without even the sun shining on me, yet I have become rather used to it.
Well I hope I may soon see you. Give my regards to all
S. H. Bassitt
Warner Building
[return to About Samuel H. Bassitt Civil War Letters]
[Transcripts from Civil War Letters binder in Allen County
(Ohio) Museum library, c. 1975]
[Original letters in the Allen County (Ohio) Museum archives]
References
1 History of Allen County, Ohio, Chicago:
Warner, Beers & Co., 1885, p.756.
2 Interview of DeWitt S. Bassett by Steve Bassett
(Baskauf), 1978.
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