Between Home and the Front. Dieser Artikel ist nicht verfügbar.Between Home and the Front

The personal letters of Americans during the Civil War preserve first-person accounts of the trials and tribulations of this significant period in the nation's history. These records of news, people, and emotions humanize the horrific events of the Civil War and provide unique insights into the conflict's effects on individuals, families, communities, and America. Often, only the letters sent home survived, leaving half of the story missing, but the Walters family's letters in the collection of the Smithsonian's National Postal Museum includes the exchange of correspondence between the home front and front line, a perspective not often seen in published anthologies. My Dear Companion gives us a glimpse into the poignant questions, answers, and sentiments Private David Walters of the 5th Indiana Calvary and his wife Rachel shared in their correspondence. The letters from David give details about some of the lesser-known actions of the Western theater of combat, such as Morgan's Raid. The letters by Rachel Walters at home show how she became the hub of communication for the family, often receiving missives from David's brothers, Isaac and John Wesley, both of whom served with Indiana units, and relaying the information to others. In order to gather more information about her husband, Rachel Walters turns to letter writing, including seeking assistance from Clara Barton's Missing Soldiers Office. Through her post-war correspondence with veterans, Rachel gathers the proof necessary for her and her young son to secure a much-needed survivor's pension. From the early letters describing a Civil War soldier's enlistment to his widow's struggle in the aftermath of the war, the letters of the Walters family add incomparable details to the study of the Civil War. Lynn Heidelbaugh and Thomas Paone of the Smithsonian Institution meticulously and lovingly transcribe and annotate the letters, providing valuable historical context of the events, people, and material culture described in the letters.

Lynn Heidelbaugh, curator at the Smithsonian National Postal Museum, specializes in the history of the US Postal Service. She has published essays and created several exhibitions about military mail, including "Letters Home" in Smithsonian Civil War: Inside the National Collection, and the exhibition My Fellow Soldiers: Letters from World War I, for which she received a Smithsonian Secretary's Award for Research in 2018.

Thomas Paone curates the lighter-than-air collection, including balloons, blimps, and airships, at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum. Paone's research focuses on ballooning in the Civil War, as well as the use of airships and blimps in America. He is coauthor of Milestones of Flight: The Epic of Aviation with the National Air and Space Museum.