LaVerne Longenecker is donating a collection of family letters to the Lebanon County Historical Society that were written by her great-grandfather, Washington Horn, to her great-grandmother Rebecca during the American Civil War.
The letters may be a significant find to show the role Lebanon Countians played in the war, according to a society archivist. They also shed light on local soldiers who are mentioned in the letters and provide new insights into Horn’s company.
Horn was a Jonestown shoemaker and a veteran of the 93rd Pennsylvania Infantry Regiment, a Union volunteer regiment during the war that included many of his fellow Lebanon County residents and was known locally as the “Lebanon Infantry.”
Horn was a prolific letter writer, penning long letters to wife Rebecca Helm Horn, who corresponded with her husband whom she loved and missed dearly. The letters span December 1861 through June 1865. His unit was mustered out on June 27, several months after the war ended.
“I’m grateful to have them, to be able to save them,” said Longenecker, a 93-year-old Cornwall Manor resident, about the letters she keeps in a green metal cash box.
Longenecker is following the wishes of her aunt Esther Horn in donating the letters to the historical society.
“We don’t have much of a large family anymore. I’ve had no children. And as far as I can tell, there were only three, my mother, my aunt Esther, and my uncle Clarence were the only three children on that side of the family,” she said.
The 123 letters written by Horn reveal his day-to-day life as a soldier and, at times, the fate of other local soldiers.
“We do nearly starve here. We get nothing but crackers and pork and coffee every meal. And I’m not used to that kind of eating anymore and I can’t hardly eat them. So I generally go and buy some bologna sausage and cheese and bread. So I hope you will excuse me for not sending you any more money until I get my other pay,” he wrote.
A retired Lebanon School District teacher, Longenecker is impressed with the volume of letters written between Washington and Rebecca, their shared prolific penmanship, and their command of the English language.
“There was something about his education that I would love to know because he makes sure that we know where he was. Here’s one (letter) that says he was in Harper’s Ferry. So when I look at that map, I can see all the names of some of the places where he has been,” said Longenecker, who noted each letter begins “Dear wife”, includes the date and location of where that letter was written, and concludes with, “I remain your beloved and true husband.”
(Here is a letter spread over two PDFs written on April 26, 1863, from the company’s camp near White Oak Church, Virginia.)
The upcoming donation is a major gift that Historical Society archivist Shane Keenan said is exciting news for the organization.
Keenan, who did not know these letters existed, was invited by LebTown to meet with Longenecker during the second of two interviews. Keenan was aware of a donation of a few previous Horn letters, as well as his bayonet and binoculars, which was made by Longenecker to the society in the 1980s.
“This is the most (letters) we have from any one local civil war veteran,” said Keenan, who added a detailed diary from another local veteran is in the society’s collection from that era. “The diaries come pretty close but not to this level, so this is giving us a lot more details into the 93rd that we might otherwise not have.”
Keenan noted that not only did Horn discuss his two wartime injuries but those of other local men who were Lebanon County residents.
“He went into details about not just because we know who got wounded and when already, but he’s going into details about how this person got wounded and what happened exactly. And how he lived through it himself,” Keenan said, who read portions that show how grisly the war truly was. “So there’s gonna be a little bit more of a personal element to things there versus what we have right now.”
The letters provide new context about the war, and Keenan said it’s a significant advancement in information concerning local soldiers involved in the bloodiest conflict to ever occur on the nation’s soil.
“We have good records of the basics from the muster rolls of who enlisted when and what battles they were in, if they were wounded, that sort of thing,” he said. “But this can give us a little bit more detail.”
The letters could also offer information to local residents who want to learn more about their ancestors who fought in the war.
“So pretty much the most common reason people come into the archives to do research is for family history and genealogy research. So this definitely will enable us to have another record that gives some more personal details,” Keenan said.
Horn’s letters are an intimate look at Company A’s camp life, as well as their movements.
“Our corp left the old camp near Burke station on the 23rd of April and took up our march for Danville, Virginia. And a hard march we had of it too. We marched over 100 miles in four days and four hours. A march that would often be done in the same time, but we were all very near played out when we got there. We are encamped here at the present time, but now how long we are to remain here is hard for me to tell. The rumor is that our division is to stay here to guard the town.”
While many letters start by following up on a letter from Rebecca, in one he forgoes those pleasantries, diving immediately into a description of heavy fighting at Fredericksburg, Virginia, written May 5, 1863, from the unit’s Banks’ Ford encampment.
“Dear wife I have the pleasure to let you know that I got through this battle safe again, and we had a terrible battle on the other side of Fredericksburg on Sunday the 4th. We charged the large fort on the heights of Fredericksburg, and we carried it, and we planted the stars and stripes on the ramparts. That is two regiments of our division. And we followed the regiments right in the rear to support them. And then we advanced about four miles on the other side of Fredericksburg. And at last we got hemmed in. But we cut our way through and got back safe again on this side of the Rappahannock River. Them that are wounded were left back, I suppose, in enemy hands because we could not get them out in time. It was the hardest battle fought yet that I was in. There are two dead out of our company, Lieutenant Nash and a private William Lenick (phonetic), and eight wounded. Our company is reduced down to 25 men now, altogether. I thank God that I got out of that scrap again.”
In a letter near the end of the war, he mentions “old rebel Joe Johnson” surrendering to Gen. William Sherman, Gen. Robert E. Lee surrendering to Gen. Ulysses S. Grant, and the death of President Abraham Lincoln, which he notes she probably knows by now.
Also significant, Keenan said, is that Rebecca’s letters to her husband were preserved — a rare feat during the Civil War.
“As you can imagine, it’s a lot more difficult for the soldier in the field to keep all the letters safe that he’s getting from home than for everybody at home to keep letters from him safe. So oftentimes, we’ll have a lot that survives from the soldiers themselves, but it’s not as often that you see letters, especially a lot of letters from their wives or whoever it is at home,” Keenan said.
The second of Horn’s two war injuries in 1864 landed him in Haddington Hospital in Philadelphia for several months. While he later rejoined Company A through the end of the war, one can only wonder if those injuries contributed to his death on Aug. 16, 1871, just six years later. A search for his obituary in historic records was futile.
Born March 28, 1829, Capt. Washington Horn passed away at age 42 and is buried in Zion Lutheran Church Cemetery in Jonestown, which is where Rebecca, who never remarried and died 27 years later in 1898 at age 62, is also interred.
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