Soldiers

The papers of centenarian, World War I veteran, and retired wall covering entrepreneur Frederic Blank, spanning close to 150 years, illustrate the varied life of a twentieth-century businessman and provide important sample books of iconic mid-twentieth-century American wall coverings.

Fictionalized journal of Charles Boss describing his frontier life and encounters with Indians while serving in the United States Army from 1866 to 1884.

This diary was kept by soldier Edward E. Brown of Company B, 35th Infantry Regiment, U.S. Army, during the Philippine-American war, for the period 1899-1901.

Charles Herbert’s journal chronicles his time as a prisoner of the English during the Revolutionary War. It describes his daily activities and the hardships of prison. Many sections of the diary have been written in code. A cipher is provided.

This collection consists of the 1857 Board of Officers (First Regiment of Rifles, Third Brigade, First Division, Pennsylvania Volunteers) constitution, bylaws, and resolutions as well as the signatures and addresses of the officers. Also included are recipes for inks, medicines, cements, pastes, dyes, wines, colognes, and waxes. There are 21 pages of additional recipes and treatments for various medical conditions.

This small collection contains documents related to the military service and travels of Italian-American immigrant Pasquale Di Giovanni between 1883 and 1903.

This collection of correspondence consists of thirty-nine letters written primarily between 1860 and 1863. The majority of the letters were written by Union Army soldier Edward A. Fulton to his mother, Mary Fulton, of Wilmington, Delaware.

This collection consists of photograph albums, training manuals, documents, and artifacts related to Thomas F. Jones, Sr.'s service in the Civilian Conservation Corps and later as a solider in the United States Army Coast Artillery stationed in Hawaii during and after the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941.

This collection features a letter, dated June 23, 1777, from Captain Robert Kirkwood of Newark, Delaware, to his father (Robert Kirkwood, Sr.) during the Continental Army’s New Jersey Campaign of the American Revolutionary War. The collection also contains military records related to officer appointments, muster rolls, subsistence rolls, and clothing supplies.

The Paul W. Knauf, Jr. World War II photograph collection consists of seventy-one black and white photographs depicting events in the European Theater of Operations from 1943 through 1945. Fifteen of the photographs were created using the Army’s radio tele-photograph electronic-transmission system. In addition to the photographs, the collection includes newspapers, a certificate from the Bell Telephone Laboratories School for War Training, and an issue of the publication "Army Talks."

Letters from Delaware resident David N. Lilley to his sister Annie, written during his period of service in the Union Army during the Civil War.

American editorial cartoons from World War II era collected by Brooklyn, New York, resident Robert S. Mallouk and an autobiographical essay about his experiences as a soldier.

This collection consists of seventeen letters written by members of the Matlack family in Philadelphia to Samuel J. Matlack while he was serving in the Union Navy aboard the USSWissahickon, a gunboat in the blockading squadron off the coast of South Carolina, during the American Civil War, from 1862-1865.

The Robert B. McKee papers consist of correspondence, military orders, medical supply inventories, casualty reports, and other material related to service as a surgeon in the 1st Delaware Calvary regiment during the Civil War.

The Pierce family papers comprise materials relating to the Pierce family of New Castle, Delaware, from the early nineteenth century to the middle twentieth century. Most of the forty-eight items date from the American Civil War and provide a personal description of military life.

Letters written by Union soldier Thomas M. Reynolds to his fiancee Louisa J. Seward, commenting on his relationship with Seward and his opinions about the Civil War.

The Rosenthal lithographic prints of Civil War encampments comprises 23 color lithographs printed by Rosenthal's Lith. of Philadelphia between 1861 and 1865.

This diary was kept by a member of the 56th Regiment Massachusetts Infantry, possibly named James E. Smith, from January 1 to May 5, 1864, during the U.S. Civil War.

This collection consists of 58 letters written by Henry J. Southmayd, Jr., to his family between 1940 and 1945 while serving in the 65th Fighter Squadron, 57th Fighter Group of the 12th Army Air Force. The letters detail his recruitment into the Army Air Corps and subsequent training as well as the events and conditions experienced while participating in the North African and Italian campaigns of the European Theater during World War II.