Letters from War: 1861 | An account of the first US Army/US Navy joint operation at Hatteras Inlet on North Carolina’s Outer Banks

Posted on by Jake Wynn

"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.

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 | 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.

A whiskey advertisement from Wilkes-Barre, PA | 1861

Posted on by Jake Wynn

When the 8th Pennsylvania's chaplain declared that bad army liquor should warn Civil War soldiers off drinking altogether, the editors of the Luzerne Union had a different takeaway — and used the opportunity to recommend their favorite local distillery. Read the story.

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.

Letters from War: 1861 | “We got the hottest of the fire” – A Pittston photographer writes from Martinsburg

Posted on by Jake Wynn

"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.

Letters from War: 1861 | An Irish immigrant on food, rumors, and realities of the Civil War

Posted on by Jake Wynn

Rumors were flying back home about hungry, mistreated soldiers at Camp Slifer. Michael McCarty — a County Longford man turned Luzerne County coal miner — had heard enough. He shared a letter from his friend Corporal Devenney at the front to set the record straight. Devenney had gained four pounds since enlisting in the US Army. Read the full letter.

A working class plea amid the Great Railroad Strike of 1877 | Letter

Posted on by Jake Wynn

During the Great Railroad Strike of 1877, a Wilkes-Barre letter writer condemned corporate greed and the brutal suppression of striking workers, calling for solidarity among laborers. Published on August 1, 1877, the plea coincided with a deadly clash in Scranton, where militia fired on strikers, foreshadowing decades of labor struggles in the Coal Region. Read the full story and letter.

Eyewitness account of railroad accident at Millersburg, Pennsylvania | June 1863

Posted on by Jake Wynn
Hotel and railroad station at the Northern Central Railroad and Lykens Valley Railroad in Millersburg, Pennsylvania - Civil War

A correspondent of the Luzerne Union newspaper provides an account of a fatal train wreck in June 1863.

Golden-tinged memories of Christmas Eve recalled in the dark days of the Civil War | 1861

Posted on by Jake Wynn

A writer in Luzerne County penned a beautiful, yet sad, remembrance of Christmas Eves past and the memories they inspired amid a terrible time in the country's history.