I figure from the wording on the letters wrote to ask about their Civil War pension that mine were not literate. Letters to his mother have words spelled wrong. "time to ansor" "you have herd" "it has ben". "A smal los " "Ben Jackson ses that i am so fat & lazy that he dont no what he shall do with me" 1864
That sounds/looks just like today's spelling; except most contemporary people have been to school, so they have no valid excuse. Too lazy to use spell check doesn't count.