“Life is like an onion; you peel it off one layer at a time and sometimes you weep.”

— Carl Sandburg

The lives of the men who served with the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry during the American Civil War are like onions waiting to be peeled to our researchers at 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers: One Civil War Regiment’s Story.

Each time we decide to take on a new biography, we begin by carefully peeling away each layer of a soldier’s life to reveal the heart of each man, and, when we do, we often weep at what we have uncovered.

So many of the men who served with the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry were just average Americans who gave the last full measure of devotion during the American Civil War to preserve our nation’s union—not just for themselves, but for future generations they would never meet.

We hope that perspective comes through each time you read one of the biographies we have created for this educational project, and that, after you do, you’ll not only continue to remember the names of the soldiers you’ve learned about, but that you’ll do all you can to honor the individual and collective sacrifices that they made during the American Civil War.

Each of us, today, owes each of them an enormous debt.