Robert Hitchcock
A major donation is expanding the collection Chapman University’s nationally recognized The Center for American War Letters. More than 11,000 wartime letters were recently entrusted to the Center by Alabama lawyer and historian Max Pope. The collection, spanning from the Civil War to Vietnam, brings the archive to more than 240,000 preserved letters and other forms of war-related communication.
Leading the effort to preserve these powerful personal accounts is Andrew Carroll, founding director of the Center, historian, and bestselling author. For nearly three decades, Carroll has dedicated himself to collecting and safeguarding the correspondence of U.S. service members and their families. His work has made the Center one of the most comprehensive repositories of personal wartime correspondence in the nation.
Carroll traveled to Birmingham, Alabama, to receive the donation from Pope, a passionate collector who spent years acquiring wartime letters, many through online auctions. In a surprising discovery, some of the letters he purchased on eBay turned out to be from his own family, which reinforced for him the importance of preserving these personal connections to history.
The letters provide a raw, intimate, and human reflection on war. Stories of courage, fear, longing, and love – written by those on the front lines and those waiting at home. Among them are daily letters from a soldier to his wife, Civil War-era messages from mothers to sons, and vivid observations of wartime experiences. Personal documents of human history that will make you laugh, cry, and feel everything in-between.
The handoff was featured during a special Independence Day segment on ABC’s This Week with George Stephanopoulos, helping to amplify the Center’s mission and this extraordinary new addition. “This is not a job, it’s a labor of love,” Carroll said during the segment. “These letters help us understand not only the realities of war, but the sacrifices made by families across generations.”
“Each letter is a unique window into history,” Pope told ABC News. “You see a personal side of war that a photo simply can’t convey.”
Housed in Chapman’s Leatherby Libraries, and curated by the Frank Mt. Pleasant Library of Special Collections & Archives, the Center for American War Letters remains open to the public and actively encourages new donations. With each letter, the Center honors the voices of American history and ensures they are preserved for generations to come. Carroll is now especially focused on seeking out and saving emails by today’s service members, young veterans, and their loved ones.
To see the ABC News story featuring the donation and the Center for American War Letters, click here.
