These pages contain scanned images of a set of journals written by Stephen Satterlee L’Hommedieu during the period of the American Civil war. I inherited them from my mother to whom they were passed down by her father who was one of S.S. L’Hommedieu direct descendants. I have been scanning them in order to preserve them before the ink further fades and the pages deteriorate and turn more yellow. They were hand stitched, rather narrow at about 3 inches in width and written with a quill pen in a very fine script. There are 11 in total written during the Civil war and one he wrote about a trip to Scotland in early 1870’s. I have worked at trying to transcribe them, not an easy task due nature of the documents, the fact that many words used at the time of this writing are no longer in use and the fact that back then “F”‘s and “S”‘s shared the same shape, both appearing as the manner of today’s script “F”. Individuals names are particularly changeling as I have no idea who of those individuals he would have known back then, although quite a few appear to be individuals, who, like SS L’Hommedieu were very involved in the war effort and I have found a number of them referenced in numerous historical documents.
S.S. L’Hommedieu lived in Cincinnati and was the President of the Cincinnati, Hamilton and Dayton Railway
link here to an image of a railway map from 1893 showing the CH&D railroad as found on Wikipeadia
and another one, also found on Wikipeadia
He was also the Editor in Chief of the first daily newspaper in Cincinnati for 20 years, called Cincinnati Gazette. He had two sons who were both in the military during the civil war, one named after him and another named Tillinghast along with a number of daughters. As President of a railroad that connected several lines heavily involved with the war effort, he spent a great deal of time traveling to Washington DC, New York and other cities involved with the war effort and was a frequent visitor to the War Dept. in DC and thus interfaced with many predominant individuals in government and the Military. As I have read thru the journals it has been a fascinating experience, not just because of the family connection, but to read the words of someone so involved with the war effort and have gained an insight to those times and events, as well as having gained a greater understanding of life in general during those years. All of which has given me a new awareness of how much different it was back then compared to today.