"It is truly wonderful that we had no lives lost in our company," wrote Sergeant James Silliman of Pottsville, PA in October 1861. His unit, Company A, 28th Pennsylvania, had fought hard with Confederate soldiers near Harpers Ferry, Virginia on October 16, 1861. Read his letter.
"Doubly armed against both Satan and seceders..." Luzerne County attorney Caleb E. Wright visited the encampment of the 7th Pennsylvania Reserves near Washington in October 1861. He described camp life for the regiment and some of the characters he met during his visit, before musing on the consequences of the Civil War. Read the full letter.
"No arrests were made." In October 1861, the Miners' Journal of Pottsville, PA reported on a brawl at the Betz tavern in turbulent Minersville Street of the city on Election Night. Read the full story.
A soldier writing under the pen name "Shoulder Arms" describes conditions at the camp of Company F, 7th Pennsylvania Reserves in the woods along the Potomac River north of Washington, DC. He described the sound of distant cannon fire, friendly fire incidents, and the hope that the time would some come to "strike a death-blow to traitors, secession, and treason." Read the full letter.
On October 4, 1861, Private James Morgan succumbed to complications from a gunshot wound he suffered during the Battle of Hoke's Run in July 1861. Morgan was mentioned in several letters written by members of the 11th Pennsylvania that were part of the Letters from War: 1861 series. Read the fully story.
In a letter written in October 1861, Captain Oliver Bosbyshell of Pottsville, PA described the arrival of the 48th Pennsylvania at Fort Monroe in Virginia. Bosbyshell described the camp, the regiment's drill, and the events happening around the important Union base on the Cheseapeake Bay. Read the full letter.
Sergeant Charles Cyphers wrote home to his former employers at the Pittston Gazette on September 30, 1861. He described his journey to join the 23rd Pennsylvania and the sights he'd seen since arriving in the nation's capital. Read the full letter.
A man slipped into Camp Cameron in Harrisburg to lure a Minersville recruit away from his company. He left under four guards, two bayonets close behind, as Captain Horace Bennett's men lined up to watch. A soldier signing only "J.S.B." told the Miners' Journal everything. Read the Full Story.
September 17, 1862 was the bloodiest day in American history. Pennsylvania's Coal Region was in the middle of it. Letters home from soldiers at the front, coffins arriving by train, and then the draft riots and labor unrest that Antietam's aftermath set loose across eastern Pennsylvania. Read all the stories here.
"Now commenced the really grand spectacle." In a letter to a friend in Wilkes-Barre, PA, Sgt. Louis Roth described the Battle of Hatteras Inlet on North Carolina's Outer Banks in August 1861. He described the fighting, the Union victory, and the terrible conditions as follows. Roth also writes a great passage about his regiment's consumption of lager beer, a favorite among the German regiments. Read the full letter.