1862 ARMY COMMITTEE OF THE YMCA. Remarkable Escapes from Peril. Civil War Presentation.

A wonderful survivor gifted by the Army Committee of the Young Men's Christan Association of Philadelphia, with lithographed label, to John M. Clark of the 62nd Pennsylvania Regiment, so signed by him on both the pastedown and the ffep.

The 62nd Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry was a distinguished Union regiment organized in Pittsburgh in August 1861 under Colonel Samuel W. Black. Assigned primarily to the V Corps of the Army of the Potomac, the regiment saw heavy action across virtually all major campaigns in the Eastern Theater. They began active operations during the 1862 Peninsula Campaign, suffering massive losses at Gaines' Mill where Colonel Black was killed, and continued fighting through Malvern Hill, Antietam, and the bloody assault on Marye's Heights during the Battle of Fredericksburg. In July 1863 at the Battle of Gettysburg, the 62nd engaged in brutal hand-to-hand combat in the Wheatfield, taking severe casualties that left them with only about ninety fit men by the battle's end.

Through 1864, the unit endured the intense attrition of Ulysses S. Grant's Overland Campaign, fighting at the Wilderness, Spotsylvania Court House, Cold Harbor, and the initial Siege of Petersburg. After participating in over twenty engagements and losing more than 250 men to combat and disease, the regiment's original three-year enlistment expired, and it was officially mustered out in July and August of 1864, with remaining veterans transferred to other Pennsylvania units to finish out the war.

The stories inside are designed both to encourage faith and hope in those young Christian men serving the Union Cause, and also to directly turn soldiers to Christ as a resource during the brutalities and dangers of war. A well-worn copy, likely carried into battle and used as a spiritual resource during the conflict.

Anonymous. Remarkable Escapes from Peril, Illustrative of Divine Providence. Philadelphia. Presbyterian Board of Publication.  1862.

Fair copy, heavily rubbed and chipped, stained throughout. But a wonderful artifact of the war and specifically those agencies such as the Christian Commission and the Army Committee of the YMCA who rose up to support the soldiers spiritually.