Slayton, Chester, fl. 1863-1864 [Collection of Chester M. Slayton, B company, 25th regiment, Michigan, infantry] [decimalized]

The Asa W. Slayton and Chester M. Slayton collection contains letters primarily written to Asa Slayton. This collection also includes two speeches written by Asa. Friends and family wrote these letters to Asa during Civil War and in the ten years following the war. Chester M. Slayton wrote four of these letters during his participation in Sherman's March to the Sea. (#1-4) These letters described the battle of Kennesaw Mountain (#1,2). He also describes the battle of Marietta, Georgia (#4). These letters give insight into the daily activities of a soldier in the engineering department. These soldiers fought in the lines and constructed fortifications for their comrades. Chester also describes the everyday activities of soldiering, such as rations preparation, movement to and from the front, and the construction and deconstruction of breastworks. Also touched upon in these letters is the lack if communication among the troops about their successes, failures and positions, as Chester speculates with a complete lack of certainty about such things in three of his letters (#1,2,4).

Of particular interest is the letter dated 16 October 1863, written by Asa W. Slayton to Colonel Strickland of the 5th Ohio(#5). In this letter Slayton requests the return of a contraband cook, George Washington who had been serving Slayton's company but left the company with the officers of the 5th Ohio. Included in this letter is the response from Colonel Commily explaining that he found George Washington among his men and placed Washington on a train back to Slayton's location and was willing to send the soldiers responsible for harboring him to trial.

Another document of note is the speech made by Asa W. Slayton to the citizens of Grattan, MI in August of 1862 (#15). This speech given just before Slayton left for war expresses his feelings on emancipation as well as his motivations for volunteering for combat. He urges his audience to petition their elected officials to end slavery because slave labor is being used to help the Confederates and thus will harm the Union cause. Moral objections to slavery are notably absent from this speech. He also explains that men with land and families have more at stake in the war than single young men because of the duty to protect their families and their investment in the future of the country for their children.

Letters written to Asa W. Slayton during the Civil War from the home front are written primarily by female family and friends, including his sister Emma Slayton (#13). One letter was written by Corneel and Alsalan whose connection to the family is unknown as they are neither sisters nor sister-in-laws but are both familiar with other members of the family and are mentioned in Emma's letter (#10). These letters touch on a variety of interesting topics. One issue these letters portray is the difficulty women faced when their brothers, husbands, and fathers went to war and left them responsibility for typically masculine tasks. For example, the authors of two letters express anger at the theft of produce from the Slayton family farm by a neighbor (#10, 14). One author threatens to shoot the neighbors should they be caught on the families land but it is obvious that the author is frustrated at her lack of ability to defend the family's property(#14). A quickly written warning also indicates that theft of far produce was a problem on the home front(#7). One letter written by Emma, Asa's sister, mentions that after the death of her father, Russell Slayton, she will wait for the Slayton brothers to return from war to divide the family estate, as Emma feels these are decisions that should be made by men.

Before the war and after he resigns from service Asa W. Slayton was employed as a school teacher. Two war time letters are written by other school teachers (#11, 12). One was written by Rosalina who seems to be both a colleague and a former student (#11). The letters written to him by his collegues give insight into issues of education in the years surrounding the Civil War (#11, 12). Two other letters are written to Asa by his brothers, Charles and William Slayton, while they are away at school, giving insight the lives of those men who seek higher education after the war(#8,9).

The collection also includes a written speech dated 1875 given at the dinner party of a couple celebrating their twenty-fifth wedding anniversary (#16). This speech does not mention the name of the speaker or the couple he is addressing; however, the author does mention that he will be celebrating his ten year anniversary in the fall of the same year. Asa Slayton married his wife Margary Slayton in October of 1865. Because Asa would also be celebrating his ten year anniversary and this document had been stored with many other papers belonging to Asa Slayton, I have attributed the speech to him. The speech discusses ideas about birth, death, love and marriage.

In addition to the collection held at the Gilder Lehman Archive, the Bentley Historical Library at the University of Michigan also possesses a Slayton family collection. This collection includes letters from Asa W. Slayton, Chester M. Slayton, and Charles Slayton addressed to their parents and other members of the Slayton family. The collection also contains three war time journals, one written by each of the above mentioned brothers. Asa W. Slayton's journal includes segments that he sent to the Grand Rapids Weekly Eagle for publication each week. Furthermore, Asa W. Slayton published a book about his family entitled History of the Slayton Family, Biographical and Genealogical in 1898 which can be found at the Conneaut Valley Area Historical Society.