This is a postcard photo of my grandmother Eulah Maxwell (tallest on the right), her sister, Margaret and her two cousins, Margaret and Nellie Barr. Circa 1910, Fairgrove, Michigan.

Civil War letter envelope. Peter Maxwell to Elizabeth Maxwell. 1862-1865

Union soldiers cooking. Photo via Library of Congress

An army marches on its stomach. —Napoleon Bonaparte

Peter Maxwell, Company F, 20th Michigan Infantry

The above is a depiction by Kurz & Allison

occurred May 6th, 1864.

Fortunately, he was a cook at the time...

Notice the different hand writing at the end...Peter was not able finish the it because he was wounded...Brayton Webster from his company finished the letter for him on June 18th. I have transcribed the closing since it too difficult to read...



June 18th, 1864

Mrs. Maxwell,

As Peter is hurt in his right hand and wishes you to hear from him I will finish it [the letter]. He is not hurt seriously and I think that he will get a chance to come home as soon as he gets to Washington. He is shot through his right hand, but there are no bones broken so you need not be alarmed about this and he says that he is quite comfortable. None for which we may all be very thankful.

Very respectfully yours,

Most Obl. Servant

B. G. Webster

Co. F 20th Mich

Photo from a newspaper clipping of Peter and Elizabeth’s golden (50 year) wedding anniversary in 1904.

Peter’s story does not end with the Civil War...upon his return, he and Elizabeth picked up the pieces of their lives and managed to build a new family of 3 sons and 3 daughters. They thrived on a 40 acre farm in Fairgrove, Michigan where they remained married for over 50 years.

Peter was not a hero or a historical figure. He was just an ordinary man in extraordinary times. There will be no novels published or history books written about him...though his story should be remembered...

Why an antique postcard? Well, lately, I have been thinking about mail and the ways people preserve their connection to one another. For the longest time, people took pen to paper and attentively scribed their words in ink. They then handed their thoughtful words over to the postman who sent it on to a yearning loved-one. The journey took weeks if not months to complete. If a person didn’t have time to write a letter, a postcard might suffice. Maybe they would send a small gift, but the idea was the same...to maintain an emotional connection.As you know, we have come a long way since the Pony Express . Today, not only can we churn out a flurry of correspondence before our 10:00am coffee break, but we can spam hundreds of our friends on Facebook with the latest full length video of our beach vacation or our kid’s crazy birthday party. Our friends can...and will do the same... ;-)I think this is great. :-) We are all so far away yet we can stay tightly connected. We can easily keep up with endeavors of our peer group on a daily basis. This is, of course, a human need. We all feel the need to stay connected...at least most of the time......But somehow, I think something is missing in the equation. I am not sure why...maybe it’s due to the ephemeral nature of today’s correspondence or our seemingly transparent, but opaque digital personae. It is so easy and instant to connect with one another that the very connection seems disposable...So let’s look at the past...The above envelope is from a letter sent by my great, great grandfather Peter Maxwell. He was my grandmother Eulah Maxwell’s grandfather. It is from a collection of correspondence Peter sent to his wife, Elizabeth, during the Civil War. It is over 145 years old...The envelope is uniquely beautiful...notice the emblem...the handwriting...the loop in the capital Ms, the lower case z, and the ink from a quill. It is definitely something to be cherished...and shared...so, I will share with you two of his letters...A little background...Peter Maxwell enlisted in Company F of the 20th Michigan Infantry in the Union Army on July 24, 1862. He was 34 years old...an old man for the army. I have no idea what he was thinking because he had two young children, Francis and Frankie. He and his wife had already lost three children...and would end up losing little Francis and Frankie by the end of that terrible war......and it was terrible...over 600,000 soldiers killed...America’s bloodiest war ever...more killed than all of America’s wars combined to date... The US only had a population of 31 million at that time.Peter Maxwell did not have to go. Most of the men (boys) in Peter’s regiment were in their late teens and early 20’s. I’m not sure how he kept up with them, but he did.I am sure he enlisted out of honor and duty to country.I understand Peter started out as the company cook. I figure he knew how to cook better than the most of the teenagers in the ranks.;-)As fate would have it, Peter ended up with a gun in his hand because his company sustained heavy losses and he was one of he last men still standing.The following letter is dated May 16, 1864. At which point, Peter had been at war for nearly 2 years...he had lost his little girl, Francis...and son Frankie to sickness, whom he laments over at the end of the letter. I cannot imagine the hardships and emotions he and his wife endured.Notice the embossing at the top of the letter...and the 19th century handwriting...Have a read...Notice Peter mentioned the heavy losses at the Battle of the Wilderness. That battle...But Peter eventually had to take up arms and was wounded in the Second Battle of Petersburg between June 15th and 18th, 1864. The letter below was just before the battle on June 15th, 1864...he would not be able to finish it...I remember my grandmother, Eulah, speaking of his crippled right hand. Yes, she remembered him and often told me of his life. That is why I tracked down the letters......And nothing I have encountered seems as difficult when I think of what was endured so long ago...I would not know this, if the letters had not been saved...I am always inspired knowing that I exist because Peter and Elizabeth endured.Today there are also meaningful stories...but I feel society risks losing their impact amidst the deluge of digital content that bombards all of us......Think back to my grandmother’s postcard...it had been saved in a shoe box for 100 years. Among other mementos, my mother framed a letter with a beautiful silk scarf sent by my grandmother’s suitor stationed in Paris during World War I.Why save them? Because they embody the spirit and emotions of the person who penned them...and by keeping them, we keep that person alive.Will emails one day become treasured memories? Can we save our Skype calls? Would we want to? How will we pass on our life’s stories to future generations? How will we curate them? With so much content constantly being created, the task seems too daunting.Before we can answer these questions, we need to realize what we could be losing through our casual digital communications. Then we can begin to design ways to curate our digital lives in order to preserve what is important on into the next generation.So, the next time you are about to send that angry email...or upload 200+ vacation photos to Facebook...or Twitter your lunch plans...stop...and take a moment to think about what you’re leaving behind.Someday, your great great grandchild may need inspiration... ;-)