Smithsonian: The Unprecedented Effort to Preserve a Million Letters Written by U.S. Soldiers During Wartime
Smithsonian: The Unprecedented Effort to Preserve a Million Letters Written by U.S. Soldiers During Wartime. “Andrew Carroll is never far away from the slim black portfolio he calls ‘the football.’ Inside are more than two dozen original letters, creased and faded, bullet-torn and tear-stained, spanning 225 years of American war history, from the early days of the Revolution to 9/11. Each page is sheathed in a protective plastic sleeve, and for added security, there are the handcuffs. Carroll locks the case to his wrist when he travels, which he does almost constantly. By his own count, he was on the road almost 200 days last year, using this remarkable sampling of letters to convince anyone who will listen how important—and ephemeral—such documents are. It’s all part of the historian’s ambitious effort to rescue these eyewitness accounts from attics, basements, garage sales and trash bins.”