Letters from War: 1861 | Peter Byrne visits his son at Camp Lyon near the Chain Bridge in Washington, DC

Posted on by Jake Wynn

A father visits his son at war - and ends up behind Union lines in Virginia Peter Byrne came to Washington to check on his son, a lieutenant in the 1st Pennsylvania Light Artillery. He left having crossed into Virginia in a borrowed uniform, stood behind an artillery battery in the pouring rain, and talked his way back across the Chain Bridge using a pass that called him "Colonel." Read the full letter.

Letters from War: 1861 | Luther T. Dodson mourns his young wife and writes of his regiment’s camp at Great Falls

Posted on by Jake Wynn

A soldier kneels at his young wife's grave - then marches back to war. Luther Dodson's wife Sarah died of tuberculosis at 25, less than a year after their wedding. He came home on leave that August, visited her grave at dusk, and wrote about it in a letter that stands as some of the most moving passages in this entire series. Then he went back to the front. Read the letter.

Letters from War: 1861 | A Pittston correspondent on Washington’s war fever and the “Peace Party”

Posted on by Jake Wynn

A constant rumble of baggage wagons, night and day" | Washington at war, August 1861 A Pittston correspondent spent a week in Washington in late August 1861 and sent back a portrait of a city transformed — cavalry clattering through the streets, tent villages visible from the Capitol, and two armies drawing closer by the day. He also had some sharp words for the "Peace Party" back home. Read the letter.

Letters from War: 1861 | Martin J. Byrne guards the Chain Bridge above Washington

Posted on by Jake Wynn

From his post guarding the Chain Bridge above Washington, Lieutenant Martin Byrne watched General McClellan and President Lincoln ride through a grand review of the division on August 21, 1861. Lincoln, he noted, had "that lofty, though care worn appearance." Read the full letter.

Letters from War: 1861 | Martin J. Byrne describes the armed camp of Washington in August 1861

Posted on by Jake Wynn

Martin Byrne arrived in Washington on August 6, 1861 and found a city locked down by mounted police, drilling soldiers, and the weight of a war gone badly wrong. He wrote home to say his health had never been better — and that he'd gained twenty pounds since leaving Carbondale. Read the letter.

Letters from War: 1861 | Ario Pardee, Sr. and the recruiting of new regiments in the summer of 1861

Posted on by Jake Wynn

New regiments, new volunteers | The Coal Region rebuilds the Union Army after Bull Run | 1861 After the disaster at Bull Run, the Union's three-year recruiting effort reached deep into the anthracite coal fields. Four new companies were forming at Mauch Chunk, a Hazleton coal operator was outfitting a regiment, and the war that everyone thought would be short was quickly escalating. Read the story.

Letters from War: 1861 | Returning soldiers riot in Harrisburg as Martin Byrne writes home to Carbondale

Posted on by Jake Wynn

After the disaster at Bull Run, thousands of unpaid soldiers flooded Harrisburg and turned to rioting — storming the arsenal, ransacking a hotel for the paymaster. A young Carbondale officer watched it unfold and called Patterson a "double-dyed traitor." Read the full letter.

Letters from War: 1861 | “The light of a thousand homes has gone out” – A soldier with ties to Pittston writes after Bull Run

Posted on by Jake Wynn

"What a terrible thing a battle is..." On July 21, 1861, the Civil War turned truly bloody at Bull Run. A soldier with ties to Pittston was there - among the first onto the field, and the last to leave - and wrote home to describe the retreat, the dead left behind, and the moment the war became something no one could take back. Read the full letter.

Letters from War: 1861 | A Carbondale abolitionist writes from the courthouse where John Brown was sentenced to death

Posted on by Jake Wynn

An abolitionist writes from the courthouse where John Brown was sentenced to die. Captain Alfred Dart of the 25th Pennsylvania, a committed abolitionist, sat down to write home from the very chair where Judge Richard Parker had condemned John Brown to the gallows less than two years earlier. He wrote about the US Army encamped where John Brown had been hanged after his attempt to overthrow slavery in the South in 1859. Read the full letter.

Letters from War: 1861 | “They fled so rapidly” – A Pennsylvania volunteer writes from a captured rebel camp in Virginia

Posted on by Jake Wynn

A Luzerne County soldier sat down in a just-vacated Confederate camp at Bunker Hill, Virginia and wrote home to a woman in Wilkes-Barre in July 1861. The rebels had left so fast they didn't take their food. The writer shares his unvarnished thoughts about his rebel foes. Read the letter.