A SOLDIER Miles Rock fought in the Civil War as part of the 1st Pennsylvania Reserve Volunteer Corps and U.S. Signal Corps. When the confict ended, Rock served as a special offcer for the government collecting arms used in the war. the war is both exciting and critical to our history classes,” Najar said. Having access to such materials is likely to leave a lasting impression on student researchers, Black added. “We primarily teach our students through storytelling now because it’s more likely to stickwith themover time, andhaving this tangible aspect, this component to the story, will actually bring Miles Rock to life as part of Lehigh’s history as well as the nation’s history,” she said. Rock refected on 19th-century Amerito help the strong and befriend those who need no friends, while the helpless and friendless are cast out into the cold,” Rock wrote in one of the letters. During his time in the army, Rock developed a serial number system to catalog each letter he sent and received. Long after the war, descendants of the recipients sometimes returned the letters they had saved, David said. Rock also used a letter copy book which was like an early version of the Xerox. The book consisted of tissue-thin pages that could be damped and pressed onto a letter to make a copy. Rock was also known to keep a copy of “Gray’s Manual of Botany” in his knapsack and meticulously recorded and pressed the plants he found during his leisure time at camp, according to his obituary. “In his own writings, Miles Rock doesn't talk much about bullets, shells and bombs. He was more likely to talk about the varieties of wildfowers he found on the battlefelds than any human carnage he witnessed there,” David said. “That said, surviving records prove that he faced enemy fre indirect action.” A journal from Rock’s senior year at Lehigh describes his day-to-day life, much of which revolved around the Friedensville Zinc Mine. “At 3:30 the great boulder fell into the pit at the mines,” Rock wrote on Feb. 20, 1869. “I was surveying under the bank north of it to learn how near the mines were to it as a precaution, but it came sooner than expected.” In another entry from Dec. 25, 1869, Rock describes a grand Christmas dinner that included turkey, duck and oysters. The library, in partnership with a project archivist, will spend six months to a year cataloging the materials, a process that includes examining Rock’s letters to determine the sender and when the letters were received, and reviewing each diary to determine when and where they were written and their context. “This is a snapshot of a person involved in science. The completeness of that snapshot is something very few collections would allow people to see,” David said. Brothers Sam Small andWes Small of The Horse Soldier, a family-owned antique store in Gettysburg that specializes in military can life in his letters, “This is a snapshot of a person involved often ofering his siblings advice, moral in science. The completeness of that support and opinions snapshot is something very few on family troubles. “Men are tooprone collections would allow people to see.” —DAV I D GRACE antiques, particularly those from the Civil War, were among the experts to examine the collection. Sam Small plans to review the Civil War letters. “It will help fgure out what he was doing during the war,” Small said. “Unfortunately, a lot of times, you never know what people did. I think the letters will tell us a great deal about that.” Both Grace brothers have a special connection to history and education. Chris works in the art industry and designs displays for galleries and museums, while David is an independent scholar. In addition to the collection, the brothers provided generous support to helpwith digitizing, cataloging and archiving the collection. Chris believes the collection will be of importance to those studying the history of Central and South America, colonialism, the history of science and the Civil War. He’s excited to see what transpires when more people have a chance to study the collection. “It’s kind of the fnal family step in our responsibility to him,” Chris said. L FA L L 2 0 2 2 | 3 5
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