Information Sheet

 

 

R         Spencer, James S., 1838-1927.

216                  Diary, 1862-1864.

                                    One folder, photocopies and typescript.

 

 

 

This is a Civil War diary of a resident of Phelps County, Missouri, and sergeant in the 32nd Mis­souri Infantry.  The diary covers the period preceding the captures Jackson and Vicksburg, Mississippi, and the advance on Tuscumbia, Alabama.  It also includes a roster of Company I of the 32nd Missouri from June 1863 to May 1864.

 

James S. Spencer was born on 6 August 1838 in Greene County, Illinois.  He moved with his fam­ily to Phelps County, Missouri, sometime before the war.  In October 1862 Spencer en­listed in Com­pany I of the 32nd Missouri Infantry, a unit raised largely in south-central Missouri.  Af­ter un­eventful service in southeastern Missouri, the regiment was ordered south to Federal ar­mies op­er­ating against Vicksburg.  It was assigned to the 15th Army Corps, a connection which lasted until the end of the war.  The regiment saw service with Gen. William T. Sher­man’s ar­mies in Missis­sippi, Tennessee, Georgia, Alabama, and the Carolinas before muster­ing out in July 1865.  A ser­geant by the time of his discharge, Spencer returned to his home in Phelps County, where he farmed until his death near Elk Prairie on 8 February 1927.

 

Spencer began keeping records in his pocket diary around July 1863.  The volume in­cludes five distinct sections, beginning with an annotated roster of Company I, July 1863--May 1864, followed by a list of equipment issued to members of the company in July 1863.  A monthly sum­mary of events from October 1862 to July 1863 begins Spencer’s record of service, with a daily accounting from May to October 1863.  The monthly and daily summaries mention en­gagements at Raymond, Jackson, Champion’s Hill, and Mechanicsville, Mississippi, during the Vicks­burg cam­paign, and the captures of Vicksburg and Jackson.  Reassignment to Memphis, Tennessee, in Sep­tember 1863 preceded an advance on Tuscumbia, Alabama.  The diary ends on 22 October 1863.  An account of the commissary fund for Company I, June-October 1863, com­pletes the volume.

 

 

 

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