GRAND HAVEN, MI (AP) -- A Grand Haven man has donated one of the nation's largest collections of Civil War-era letters to the state archives.
State Archivist Mark Harvey says the collection consists of correspondence between Wallace Ewing's great-grandparents sent from 1856 through 1865.
Henry McKendree and Nancy Ewing of Hillsdale sent each other 291 letters during that time. Many were written while McKendree was fighting in the Civil War, which ran from 1861 through 1865.
All the letters are in their original addressed, stamped and canceled envelopes.
The donation to the Archives of Michigan also includes a notebook kept by McKendree and a scrapbook made by Ewing during the war.
The gift was announced Tuesday.
(Copyright ©2008 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
