Now that the series is over, the question remains, who was "See See Ess?" Deciding to crack the case forthwith I started with the logical assumption that "See See Ess" was an acronym of a sort for C. C. S. So then a soldier with the initials C. C. S.- or better yet and officer or at least non-commissioned officer, from the easy way he seemed to get around and mingle with various rank. After searching through the combined rosters of the Union regiments from Vermont I almost immediately came across a Lieutenant C. C. Spaulding serving in the Company D of the Fifth Vermont. What is more, Charles Carroll Spaulding, born left the Fifth Vermont in the fall of 1862 and went on to FOUND A NEWSPAPER in Montpelier, Vermont. Further research revealed that Spaulding was a Democrat, which would seem to match the correspondent's praise of McClellan and occasionally critical remarks about Lincoln. His obituary also revealed he had been to the West which would gibe with some of the comments in the letters to the paper.
I was rather pleased that I had pulled all these facts together in order to find the identity of the letter writer. And then I found this in the Green Mountain Freeman of October 16, 1862
Lieut. C. C. Spalding(sic), Co. D, Fifth Vermont, has been honorably discharged from the service on account of ill health. He has now gone to Washington hoping to get some Situation whose duties his health will allow him to perform. We hope to hear from him occasionally over his familiar signature See. See. Ess.
So, not so a great piece of detective work as I thought. Pride goeth before a fall and a newspaper clipping you should have checked in the first place.
Here is Spaulding's full obituary:
Charles C. Spaulding, editor of the Newport News while it existed, died in Boston last Thursday. He was the son of Dr. Azel Spaulding of Montpelier. He graduated from the university of Vermont in the class of 1847, and chose the profession of civil engineer, but did not follow it long. In 1849, when the California gold fever broke out, he was one of the pioneers who bought that numerous land, making the passage in a sailing vessel around Cape Horn. His success at mining was indifferent. Returning home via the Pacific coast and the Gulf of Mexico, he spent about a year in Montpelier, when he went to New York and entered the service of Harnden & Co. as express messenger between New York and Boston. Soon going West, he engaged in surveying and railroad engineering in Ohio, Illinois and Kentucky. At the time of the establishment of Kansas a territory, he was living in one of the border counties of Missouri, where he married a Missouri lady. He took part in the establishment of its territorial government, making preliminary surveys and encouraging immigration by writing special letters to tho New York Tribune, which attracted no little attention in the East. He published a paper in Lawrence, Kansas, and was elected an alderman, and was for a short time mayor of the city. He took the democratic side on the out break of the Kansas war, and soon after left the state. He afterwards taught school, and at the breaking out of the war returned to the East, enlisting in tho sixth Vermont regiment, served two years, came home and started the Newport News, at Newport. This he sold, and went to Boston in 1866 and took a position on the Boston Post. In 1869, he became connected with the Boston Herald, and remained with that paper up to the time of his decease. He had been suffering from a complication of diseases involving the heart and other vital organs, and bis death was not unexpected.
-Vermont Farmer (Newport, Orleans County, Vt.)January 26, 1877
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