"The enemy's balls whistled like hail about our ears." Sergeant Francis Woodhouse stood his ground as cannon fire tore through the lines at Hoke's Run and watched two Pittston men fall wounded beside him. He came through without a scratch and wrote home four days later with one of the most vivid firsthand accounts in this series. Read the full letter.
A Fourth of July firefight at Harpers Ferry, Virginia. Captain Alfred Dart's Fourth of July opened with a skirmish across the Potomac River. He found time to write home to Carbondale on the holiday. Read the full letter.
George Shafer was 17 years old and had just survived his first Civil War battle when he sat down to write his mother in Carbondale, PA. He wanted her to know he was safe — and wondered what the town was doing to celebrate the Fourth of July. Read the full letter.
On July 2, 1861, the men of the 11th Pennsylvania finally met the enemy. Writing from Williamsport, MD two days later, Private William Ferris of Pittston, PA became the first soldier in this series to report from an actual battlefield — and the news from the front was only getting more serious. Read the full letter.
In a letter to the "Miners' Journal," Private James K. Helms of the 6th Pennsylvania describes the scenes as the US Army crossed the Potomac River at Williamsport, MD in June 1861. The young soldier's account vividly describes their first march toward the enemy in Virginia. Read the full letter.
Charles Cyphers and the 8th Pennsylvania have left Camp Slifer behind. Soldiers are everywhere he looks, Harpers Ferry looms on the horizon, and Cyphers tells his editor to expect news of a battle soon — provided no secessionist puts a bullet through him first. Read the full letter.
In a letter to the Carbondale Advance, Captain Alfred Dart described looting relics from the Marshall House in Alexandria, Virginia - site of the death of Colonel Elmer Ellsworth. He also describes the movements of the 25th Pennsylvania and the situation at Alexandria. Read the full letter.
A soldier from Carbondale, PA spent a night in the very hallway where Colonel Elmer Ellsworth had been shot dead days earlier - the floor still stained with his blood. Then he shipped out to fight Confederate artillery on the Potomac River. He wrote home to describe all of it. Read the full letter.
On June 1, 1861, an African American man named Frank Jones was murdered by soldiers near Camp Slifer in Chambersburg. A sergeant from Luzerne County wrote home to describe it. His letter is one of the most disturbing documents in this series — and an unflinching look at deep-rooted racism lurking beneath the Union war effort. Read the letter.
Men bathing in a stream, spreading out under the trees for a nap, watching an eagle pass overhead — Charles Cyphers' fourth letter from Camp Slifer captures the quiet, restless rhythm of soldiers waiting for the war to find them. Read the full letter.