Rediscoveries: Robert F. Braden's Civil War Trunk

While we no longer have the original letters, we do have transcriptions made by Vera (Healey) Braden of the Civil War letters of Robert F. Braden.

Below is a page from one of those transcriptions.  This is a transcription of a letter Robert wrote from Prairie Grove, Arkansas on 22 December 1862:

I want to call your attention to the 4th paragraph that begins "But if you could look..."

Notice that he describes his living quarters in his tent and mentions "...in the other corner is a box with a folding lid, which holds my uniform and traps and when opened makes a very convenient desk."

Well, we have that box.

We have had it for ages and knew it was old and a "family piece," but didn't realize that it was the box Robert was describing in his letter, until one day while sorting through the stuff we keep inside it, I noticed that the lid was stained with ink (see that black spot).  And then I saw written on the inside of the lid:

"R.F.Braden" written in ink on the inside of the lid.

So while we no longer have Robert's letters, we have the box he used as a desk to write them.