"The anthracite coal strike had a fitting climax in the cold blooded eviction scene that took place on the Jeddo property of G. B. Markle & Co. to-day..." On November 6, 1902, several families were forcibly evicted from company-owned housing in the mining patches outside Hazleton, PA. This is the account of the evictions that circulated in its aftermath. Read the story.
"I feel at home everywhere in this great Republic, with Freedom's soil beneath my feet and Freedom's Banner, the Stars and Stripes, floating over me." In a letter to the Carbondale Advance, Sergeant Peter Vankirk described the aftermath of the Battle of Ball’s Bluff in October 1861 and explained why he had joined the Union army to put down the rebellion. Read the full letter.
Election Day 1876 in Wilkes-Barre was strangely calm—quiet polls, policemen on watch, and “brilliant” saloons where neighbors waited out the night. The city edged for Samuel Tilden, but the nation’s disputed count delivered Rutherford B. Hayes as President and the end of Reconstruction. A Coal Region snapshot of a forgotten turning point in American politics. Read the full story.
"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.
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.
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.
"Cry of foreigner, foreigner..." In the weeks after the Lattimer Massacre, the American Federation of Labor (AFL) responded in print. They deplored the violence and their anti-immigrant rhetoric used to defend the Luzerne County sheriff for murdering 19 unarmed mineworkers. Read their response and their appeal to the nation's workers.
"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.