Letters from War: 1861 was featured by WVIA News this week. Roger DuPuis and I talked about the project, the chaotic opening months of the Civil War, and what these Coal Region soldiers' letters still reveal 165 years later. Read more and find the full interview.
While researching Letters from War: 1861, a single line in a Coal Region newspaper stopped me cold. A sergeant had written home describing the murder of a Black man by Union soldiers. This is the investigation into what really happened on June 1, 1861 and the lynching of a man named Frank Jones.
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.
"We are like soldiers in the front of the battle." Weeks before the Avondale disaster killed 110 men and changed Coal Region history, a Boston reporter sat down on a log with two Welsh miners in Summit Hill, PA and asked them what their lives were actually like. They didn't hold back. Read the full story.
A crowd gathered at the Mahanoy City, PA train station in May 1918 as a locomotive carried local men off to war. In the middle of it all, a 14-year-old boy watched his brother leave—one small moment in a much larger story of a region sending its sons into World War I. Read the Full Story.
“There was no better or braver soldier than... John Dougherty.” At the Battle of South Mountain in September 1862, a Pottsville railroad worker turned US Army officer fell leading his men into battle. I recently visited the grave of this Irish-born Civil War hero in Pottsville, PA. Read the full story.
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.
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.
“Profane swearing is… a most debasing practice.” In the middle of the Civil War, a Coal Region newspaper turned its attention from the battlefield to something closer to home: the language of local workers. Its advice was simple, direct, and a little out of touch with reality. Read the Full Story.
A young student from Wyoming Seminary in Kingston, PA traded his classroom for an army camp near Chambersburg in the spring of 1861. He and wrote back to a classmate about the food, the boredom, and his burning desire to meet the rebels in battle. Read the full letter.