Joseph Heft Diary, 1864-1865, 1870

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Joseph Heft Diary, 1864-1865, 1870

Joseph Heft Diary, 1864-1865, 1870

http://www2.lib.unc.edu/mss/inv/h/Heft,Joseph.html

Joseph Heft was from Coshocton County, Ohio. He was drafted for service in the Union Army on 21 September 1864. The collection contains the diary, 1864-1865, 1870, of Joseph Heft, who served in the 78th Ohio Infantry Regiment in the Army of the Tennessee. The diary records the movements of the 78th Ohio on William T. Sherman's March to the Sea and March through the Carolinas. Heft detailed the miles marched, the conditions of the march, and the burning of railroad tracks along the way. He also mentioned fighting with Confederates contesting the Union advance at Savannah, Ga.; Pocotaligo Station, S.C.; and Orangeburg, S.C. In March 1865, Heft described the death of a Confederate soldier executed in retaliation for the death by beating of a Union soldier. He noted seeing Confederate dead on the field after the Battle of Bentonville in North Carolina. Heft also recorded his march through Virginia and into Washington, D.C., for the Grand Review of the Union Armies on 24 May 1865. The diary concludes with Heft's return to Ohio and discharge from military service in June 1865. The volume also contains about twenty pages of accounting from 1870. There is an unbound partial handwritten transcription, probably by Heft, of this diary and another diary not included in this collection.

2

eng,

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Library. Southern Historical Collection