Scope and Content of the Collection From the Collection: Twenty-two letters from Richard Realf to Laura B. Merritt and her sister Marian Merritt Cramer of Chicago, written while in active service in the Civil War as a soldier in the Illinois Eighty-eighth Volunteer Infantry, organized at Chicago in 1862. Some letters contain vivid, often poetical descriptions of Realf’s experiences as a soldier in the midst of several skirmishes as his regiment moves south. The Illinois 88th was stationed in several locations around Atlanta, becoming involved in...