School teacher Joel Molyneux of Sullivan County, Pennsylvania enlisted for three years in the 141st Regiment, Pennsylvania Volunteers, in August 1862. Private Molyneux was detached from the 141st for most of his tenure in the Union army, serving as a provost guard at Division Headquarters.

As a provost guard, he was assigned to not only guard the generals, but also to watch over both Union and Confederate prisoners. Many of his nights were spent searching for and carrying to field hospitals those who had fallen in combat.

Molyneux liked to write. His talent became apparent immediately upon his enlistment, for even while en route to Harrisburg, where the regiment trained, he began writing to people back home. This collection of 136 letters, preserved in their original unedited form, offers insights into both the army, and what his friends and neighbors back home in rural Pennsylvania were thinking and doing.