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…