Veteran's Day Challenge: "This Hell-Upon-Earth of a Prison" - UPDATE

Update! Volunteers completed transcription of all of "This Hell-upon-earth of a prison", Samuel Gibson's diary and letter, in less than 36 hours!*  We then challenged you to review "Disabled but not disheartened" and volunteers jumped in to move 371 pages to completed!  Incredible work!  We hope that you'll share your reflections and takeaways from these campaigns in the comments below. 

Stretch goal, "Disabled but not disheartened":

So, "what's next?" you ask. With the holiday still a few days away, we hope you're up for a 2nd Veteran's Day challenge!

Let's complete all 1,572 pages needing review in the "Civil War Soldiers: 'Disabled but not disheartened'" Campaign by the end of Veterans Day. This is a lot of material, but you all have shown yourselves to be an incredible community, and we think you can do it! This campaign features entries from the left-handed penmanship competition created by a reformer, poet, editor, and clergyman named William Oland Bourne for Union soldiers who lost their right arms in the conflict. Reviewing these pages you'll encounter soldiers' personal accounts of battle and loss, as well as their lives after the war, when they trained themselves to write left-handed and returned to civilian life and work.

This was one of our original campaigns launched in October 2018. It would be amazing to round out the review of these letters by wounded soldiers, so that we could publish the full set of transcriptions back on loc.gov. That would be a lot to be proud of, and grateful for, this Veterans Day.

Join in by visiting "Disabled but not disheartened"

Progress: 371 pages completed! (since challenge launch 11/8, 9am EST)

Original challenge, "This hell-upon-earth of a prison":

“Today is the holy sabbath: but there is no sabbath here; Oh Liberty; Law & Order! Thou canst not be appreciated till thou art once lost”

So wrote Union soldier Samuel J. Gibson in the depths of his agony while held as a prisoner of war at the notorious Andersonville prison camp in Georgia. Gibson’s diary of 1864-1865 documents part of his military service, capture, experience at Andersonville, and ultimate release. Today we are publishing the 200-page diary, as well as a letter Gibson wrote to his wife as "This Hell-upon-earth of a Prison."  We launch this new campaign to challenge you, the By the People community, to completely transcribe and review Gibson's writings by the end of Veteran's Day (November 11^th). Once all of the pages have been reviewed we can publish the transcriptions back on loc.gov where they’ll will make these important documents fully searchable.

Documents such as these connect us all to the past, but for some people this connection is personal. Several of Samuel Gibson’s descendants are alive today, including his great granddaughter, Peggy. Read her experience of learning about the diary here.

This week we invite you to engage deeply with Gibson’s writings, and to treat your volunteer service as a chance to think about the veterans in your own life and your own history. We'll track daily numbers here, so check in to see progress toward our goal!

If you’re new to review, read through our How-To Review guide before getting started.

Join in by visiting "This Hell-upon-earth of a prison": Samuel J. Gibson's Andersonville Diary

Progress: