Associate professor Dr. Jeremy Neely of Missouri State University’s Department of History has published a new book centered around the U.S. Civil War.

In “A Union Tested,” Neely examines the lives of Henry and Cimbaline Fike through hundreds of letters they exchanged between 1862 and 1865 while Henry was a quartermaster in the Union army.

“Dr. Neely is a foremost expert on the border war between Kansas and Missouri,” said Dr. Kathleen Kennedy, head of the history department. “This study represents an extension of his work into how the Civil War affected families and individuals as they negotiated the divisions of war.”

Historical serendipity leads to the Fikes

Neely was researching another book project on Missouri during the Reconstruction era when he encountered Henry Fike’s diary. He described the diary as “massive,” as it dates from the 1850s until 1919.

“He was such a prolific writer that I wondered if he had any other papers, and it turned out that, yes, he did,” Neely said. While serving as a Union soldier, Fike exchanged nearly 400 letters with his wife, Cimbaline.

“Their exchanges pulled me in almost instantly,” Neely said.

“The war demanded tremendous sacrifices of men and women alike,” he said. “Many volunteers, including Henry, signed up for three-year enlistments, and those lengthy deployments placed enormous strains upon families. Navigating those challenges was a constant and often fraught process.”

Expansive research “fleshes out” personalities

Neely started researching the Fikes in 2020 and ended up spending roughly four years on the project.

The process could have grown cumbersome, as the Fikes’ papers are split between two libraries. Henry’s diaries are held at the State Historical Society of Missouri, while his and Cimbaline’s letters are located at the University of Kansas. In addition, several diaries and letters from Henry’s comrades are at the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library in Springfield, Illinois.

Neely was able to continue and broaden his research through a summer fellowship. He used the opportunity to examine newspapers, military records and private manuscripts to “flesh out the Fikes’ world more clearly,” he said.

Cimbaline’s and Henry’s personalities immediately emerged from the letters.

“Cimabline was strong and fearless in speaking her mind, but she also struggled with loneliness and what we today would recognize as depression,” he explained. “Henry was confident, loyal and enthusiastic. Together, they were ardent supporters of the Union war effort and had no patience for neighbors who failed to match their devotion.”

Transcription process reveals historical reality of literacy levels

As part of the research process, Neely transcribed the Fikes’ letters. “Those added up to more than 180,000 words,” he said.

“Henry was a terrific writer,” Neely noted. “He had a keen eye for the people, plants and landforms of areas that he visited. His regiment traveled more than 4,000 miles in 1864 alone, and his letters became a kind of travelogue for the enormous country that stretched from the Ozarks down the Mississippi Valley to Louisiana bayous and the gulf coast of Alabama.”

Cimbaline’s letters, on the other hand, presented Neely with a time-consuming obstacle.

“Cimbaline, like many girls and women during the mid-nineteenth century, had limited access to formal schooling, and trying to decipher her spelling and sporadic use of punctuation was a challenge,” he said. “It took me a while to understand the phonetic basis of her writing. What seemed like a total mess in print made a lot more sense if I tried to read it out loud.”

Neely cited an example of Cimbaline’s comments about the Fikes’ two-year-old daughter, Ellie, to illustrate.

“She gites up in a char an croles on the beed or on the table in the window pules out the fire tares up the carpet turned over the chares dables in the watter gites in the cubbred pules of her shoes and stockens,” Cimbaline wrote.

Neely’s translation clarifies Cimbaline’s intent: “She gets up in a chair and crawls on the bed or on the table [or] in the window, pulls out the fire, tears up the carpet, turns over the chairs, dabbles in the water, gets in the cupboard, pulls off her shoes and stockings.”

Letters highlight the bonds of marriage

For Neely, the Fikes’ letters provide a glimpse into the life of an ordinary married couple who struggled to maintain normalcy during abnormal times. Spouses especially experienced the war as a shared struggle, bound by ideas about loyalty, sacrifice and purpose, he explained.

But more than anything, Neely wants readers to see and experience the Fikes’ humanity.

“Even though Henry and Cimbaline faced extraordinary circumstances, the stuff that filled their letters would be recognizable to almost any couple: they teased, flirted, fought, argued about money and worried about each other’s health.”

“The fact that they also talked a lot about the war and what it meant to them was a nice bonus.”

From page to classroom

Consequently, Neely uses excerpts from the Fike papers in the classroom. He finds them to be powerful illustrations of life in mid-nineteenth century Missouri that students can immediately understand.

“Henry’s trek across Missouri in the fall of 1864 provides a terrific window into the everyday challenges faced by soldiers on the march, along with the ways that years of warfare had devastated much of the state,” Neely said. “The Fikes’ letters from that period also show how health care and debt — issues that are too relevant for many households today — also weighed heavily upon the Civil War generation.”

Neely’s innovative efforts are no surprise to Kennedy. “He is a popular and rigorous classroom teacher whose students praise him for the care he shows them and the enthusiasm he brings,” she noted.

The world the Fikes knew

Neely also wants readers to understand how the Civil War shaped everyday Americans’ ability and desire to write, as well as how much they valued staying connected.

“I hope that readers can appreciate how the Civil War became a kind of classroom that helped make writers out of people who had never had the time, need or inclination to take up their pens to contact loved ones,” Neely said. “In an age of instant communication, a letter that sometimes took more than a week to reach its recipient might seem like a poor substitute for a missing family member. But letters truly were a lifeline, the kind of bridge that connected spouses, parents and children and helped them sustain relationships disrupted by war.”

For now, “A Union Tested” is just Neely’s first step into peering into the Fikes’ lives.

“My current work widens the lens to look more broadly at the Fikes’ world,” he said. “For a long time, ‘Civil War history’ focused only upon military or political leaders. I’m more interested in understanding the connective tissues that linked ordinary soldiers and civilians.”

“I’m excited to take people who appear in the margins of ‘A Union Tested’ and let them become central characters in this next project.”

Neely is also the author of “The Border between Them,” a history of the Kansas-Missouri “border wars” and their impact on citizens of both states. He currently serves as the history department’s Undergraduate Program Coordinator.