American Historical Ephemera & Photography

4pp, 5 x 8 in. letter from William Robert McFarlane (1847-1911) to his mother Mrs. Hannah Susan McFarlane (1812-1886) of Reedsville, Mifflin County, Pennsylvania (creasing at folds, light toning, cover with losses at left edgeline). "Gettysburg / PA" cancellation dated 2 November 1863 on cover.

On the 17th of October, teenager William McFarlane of Reedsville departed home for what appears to be a sightseeing tour and pleasure trip. Following stops in Harrisburg, Carlisle, and Petersburg, he ventured to Gettysburg to see the battlefield. There he retrieved some relics and visited the cemetery. "But I must give you a discription of the battle field as far as I have seen," he writes to his mother. "[W]ell I went out to round top hights & there wa mules and horses lying half buried and the smell is quite fowl yet. There are people here from all parts of the U.S. hunting their friends and to se where the greatest seen of action was 4 months ago."

An interesting letter hinting at the scale of devastation left in the wake of the Battle of Gettysburg, the plight of families who sought to locate remains of deceased loved ones, and the ways in which Gettysburg was becoming a place of pilgrimage even before the Civil War had ended.