"I wish you could come home. I think I could rub your head and help take care of you when you are sick." 

The New Testament​​​​​​. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1864. 48mo. Original leatherette with brass clasp. WITH Autograph letter by Cora Lynn Waite Harrison. 

A remarkable pocket testament and miniature enclosed letter presented by young Cora Lynn Harrison (nee Waite) to her ailing father, Pvt. Julius Porter Waite, while he was a prisoner of war. Cora, about 8 years old at the time, sent this diminutive book and an accompanying note to Libby Prison in Richmond, Virginia, where her father was held after the capture of himself and his men at Brentwood, Tennessee, by Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest in 1863. Listed as "Porter Wait" on the rolls of the 22nd Wisconsin Infantry, he enlisted in the Union Army on August 15th, 1862, and served for nearly two years until discharged due to chronic illness caused by his months-long imprisonment.

Affixed inside the testament is a touching four-page letter, written in ink and likely originally folded between its pages. Cora expresses sadness that her father cannot come home, especially because he was sick. She longs to "rub his head" to help him feel better, a heartbreaking and tender detail. In typical childlike fashion, she then veers into details of presents received for Christmas, including a flatiron and a "little pair of cisors [sic]." She also reports her brother, Charlie, for taking a hatchet to one of his gifts, a wooden rattle box. 

Waite did eventually return to the family home in Hudson, Wisconsin, but he never recovered from the illnesses he contracted in Libby Prison. A successful escape attempt brought him within Union lines, but he ultimately proved to be unfit for service due to his weakened condition. After the War, he moved his family to Allegan, Michigan, where they worked as fruit pickers and sellers at an apple orchard until his death in 1910. Cora married Charles Harrison in 1881 and bore three children. She predeceased her beloved father in 1903. 

An accompanying note, typewritten long ago, provides a measure of provenance to the testament and letter. These objects descended from Cora and through her great-grandaughter, Susan Lynn Schmitt. Letters to soldiers from their children are prized by collectors; this is a particularly sweet example that was tucked carefully inside a soldier's bible while serving his country. 

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