Transcending Local Loyalties Material Aid for Northern Civil War Soldiers

Abstract

Surviving records of the Soldiers’ Aid Society of Erie, Pennsylvania, preserve a message received from a chaplain in one of the local regiments during the Civil War:

If all in the North encouraged the Union Soldiers as much as the loyal Ladies are doing, there would be a different spirit in the army—We need noble hearts & busy hands—earnest prayers & earnest labors—confidence in God and working with God— with these, the victory must be ours; without them a fate which I pray God may arrest.