Henry Clay Fike and Lucy Cimbaline Fike wrote their way through a civil war that tested both their nation and their marriage.

During his three-year enlistment in the Union army, Henry penned at least 314 letters to his wife; Cimbaline responded with more than 90 letters from the couple’s home in Mascoutah, Illinois, about 30 miles southeast of St. Louis.

A fascinating window into the life of a common soldier, Henry’s papers document the difficult march in pursuit of Sterling Price’s Confederate forces from St. Louis to the Kansas border, the cheering reception of loyal civilians, and a guerilla war more brutal than anything he had witnessed in years of soldiering.

One of Henry’s letters was penned in Lexington, during his time in Missouri in the fall of 1864, a period when he faithfully kept a diary.

(Three years earlier, Price’s Missouri State Guard overwhelmed the Union garrison in Lexington. Price’s army clashed with a smaller Union force at Lexington on Oct. 19, 1864. After slowing the rebels’ advance during six hours of skirmishing, James G. Blunt’s outnumbered federal troops retreated westward toward the Blue River).

Oct. 22, 1864; Lexington, Missouri

Dear Cimbaline, I am seated by a camp fire, on an old broken bucket, writing on my knee. My desk is loaded up in the wagon, and gone, and I had to get this paper from a soldier. I am very well…I believe, I wrote to you last from Lamine Creek. Since then, we have marched some seventy-five miles. By looking on the map you will see that Lexington is on the Missouri River. We are now getting near the Kansas line. We have come through some very fine looking country. I am quite well pleased with its appearance. Good land and well improved farms can be bought out here at from five to twenty-five dollars per acre. I have heard of some real good bargains. A great many people have become so annoyed with the war, that they are willing and desirous of selling out at any price.

We followed Gen. Price’s army pretty close, getting in here a few hours after he left. We are off this morning in hot pursuit of him. I have some doubts of our catching him — his forces all being mounted. We have considerable cavalry, however, which may annoy him, so as to detain him, till we can get up with him. If we can only get a chance at him, we are perfectly willing to risk the consequences.

Your affectionate husband, Henry. ——— As the federals’ pursuit of Price intensified, Henry’s once-daily letters home became less frequent. Cimbaline despaired about not only her husband’s safety but also the family’s financial situation.

She may have lacked a formal education, but her letters reveal an intelligent woman unafraid to express her opinions to her husband. In his absence, she managed the family’s meager finances and sometimes expressed her displeasure with Henry’s spendthrift ways.