“The Blue Marble” (Earth, photographed by Apollo 17 astronauts, December 7, 1972; NASA, public domain).

Another year almost gone. More milestones achieved for a personal research project that has grown into a multi-faceted, educational outreach program with connections on all seven continents of our planet.

Seven out of seven continents.

That statistic is the one that astonishes me most of all as I sit here compiling our annual Year in Review report for 2025. 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers: One Civil War Regiment’s Story is truly now a global community of lifelong learners.

Children and adults are engaged, at the moment I write this, in a quest to understand what it actually meant to be a member of the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry during the American Civil War. As they do so, they are learning that the light of hope persists even when the world is filled with darkness.

Key Project Statistics (as of 6 p.m. Pacific Time on December 31, 2025):

• First Content Posted to Website: May 25, 2014
• Total Website Page Views to Date: 967,350
• Total Number of Website Visitors to Date: 767,532
• Total Number of Facebook Followers: 2,213
• Total Number of Instagram Followers: 1,160
• Total Number of 47th Pennsylvania Volunteer Gravesites Documented Via the Project’s Virtual Cemetery: 1,446
• Total Number of Individual Officers and Enlisted Men Profiled to Date: 345
• Most Popular Post in 2025: Finding Your 47th Pennsylvanian: Use “Bates’ History” — But With Caution

Why Is There So Much Interest, Globally, in a Single, Seemingly “Obscure” Civil War Regiment from Pennsylvania?

The light and dark blue areas of this map show the reach of 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers: One Civil War Regiment’s Story as of December 31, 2025 (image courtesy of Snyder Family Archives).

What started as a personal research interest of one descendant of a 47th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantryman soon became the research focus of a half dozen descendants of 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers — and then dozens more as the website and social media sites for 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers: One Civil War Regiment’s Story launched and gradually attracted followers, including family historians, Civil War enthusiasts, history professors, and students in high schools and universities across the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania — and beyond.

In 2020, the project’s audience grew substantially as teachers and students turned to distance learning and the “47th Pennsylvania Volunteers’ Project” as a way to keep minds sharp during the COVID pandemic that prompted the closure of schools and businesses worldwide. It was that year that educators from India residing in the United States and teachers across India found our website and began helping their students better understand the history of the United States by encouraging them to “see” the American Civil War “through the eyes of” the soldiers and families whose biographies were available on our website.

As more people heard about our website, supporters of our work began donating photographs of young soldiers in uniform and letters penned by 47th Pennsylvanians stationed far from home — each artifact a “log on the fire” of expansion — growth that continued even as in-person instruction returned to classrooms across the globe. Since that time, Pennsylvanians have been reading and learning from the same content as students in:

• Amsterdam (the Netherlands)
• Bangkok (Thailand)
• Barcelona, Madrid and Zaragoza (Spain)
• Bengaluru and Mumbai (India)
• Brussels (Belgium)
• Bogota (Columbia)
• Dubai (the United Arab Emirates)
• Dhaka (Bangladesh)
• Dublin (Ireland)
• Falkenstein, Bielefeld, Frankfurt, and Koeln (Germany)
• Glasgow (Scotland)
• Helsinki (Finland)
• Ho Chi Minh City (Vietnam)
• Hrebinka (Ukraine)
• Istanbul (Türkiye)
• Jakarta (Indonesia)
• Lagos (Nigeria)
• Lima (Peru)
• London, Durham, Leeds, and Manchester (Great Britain)
• Luleå (Sweden)
• Manama (Bahrain)
• Manila (the Philippines)
• Melbourne and Sydney (Australia)
• Montreal, Courtenay, Edmonton, Ottawa, Saskatoon, Toronto, and Vancouver (Canada)
• Nairobi (Kenya)
• Santiago (Chile)
• São Paulo (Brazil)
• Seongnam and Seoul (South Korea)
• Warsaw and Witkowo (Poland)
• Singapore (Republic of Singapore)
• Tokyo and Kumamoto (Japan)
• Vientiane (Laos)
• Xiamen, Beijing, Hong Kong, Shanghai, and Zhengzhou (China), and
• Christchurch (New Zealand).

We now even have contacts at McMurdo Station in Antarctica! (Not a bad way to close the book on a challenging and often heartbreaking year.)

A Resolution for 2026

The 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers fought long and hard to help end a devastating civil war, eradicate the shameful practice of slavery and rebuild their shattered nation, and for those reasons alone, should be remembered for their service to the nation.

But perhaps the most important part of their collective story is that soldiers who somehow managed to survive unimaginable horrors never gave up trying to make their world a better one.

And neither should we.

My hope for 2026 is that more individuals in our world will “see wrong and try to right it” while also doing what is humanly possible to heal suffering in ways that “send forth ripples of hope and change.”

Happy New Year!