November 28, 2023

The $1,200 sale to a private collector of the identification disc of a Union Army officer who was captured and held by Confederate troops as a prisoner of war.

Boxes of soldiers’ handwritten diaries and letters, filled with important data about their day-to-day lives and families, as well as the battles in which they were engaged, passed from one collector to another for $500 to $750.

The ongoing inaccessibility to teachers and students of thousands of U.S. soldiers’ Civil War military and pension files, including those of formerly enslaved Black men who enlisted with the Union Army, because it costs $110 per soldier or more to purchase these records from the local, state and national archives where they’re stored in order to digitize them and make them freely available to the public.

The auction of an American Civil War soldier’s photograph that drove the normal purchase price of that item from $25 to $300—far out of reach for a descendant of that soldier.

The staff and volunteers of 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers: One Civil War Regiment’s Story have personally experienced each of these and other similarly heartbreaking situations on an almost monthly basis since launching our decade-long, educational project to preserve and share information about the history-making 47th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry.

While we’ve managed to rescue a number of photographs and documents over the last ten years, we’ve lost intense battles during entirely too many auctions—all because we simply did not have the financial resources to win when we really needed to.

That’s why we’ve decided to join forces with the Giving Tuesday movement in 2023. So, today, we’re reaching out to ask each of you who has enjoyed reading the content we have been researching and presenting to step up and show us that you truly do value our work by making a donation on or before Giving Tuesday this year—on November 28, 2023.

By donating whatever amount you can afford right now, you’ll be joining with other fans of the 47th to help us expand our work and save more photographs, soldiers’ letters and other important documents in order to make them available free of charge to you—our loyal readers and fellow history enthusiasts.

Two Ways to Give

• Visit our GoFundMe page and use the secure donations link to make your one-time donation there; or
• Visit our website’s Support Us page and use the secure donations link to make your recurring or one-time donation there.

Please Help

Together, we can save history. Please help us make an even greater difference as we head into our second decade.

Kind Regards,

Laurie Snyder, Founder and Managing Editor
47th Pennsylvania Volunteers: One Civil War Regiment’s Story