The collection consists of four letters written in Norwegian: two letters, dated in 1864, from Peter Knudson Brye, who was at the time fighting in Georgia in the Civil War; and one letter, 1863, from another Wisconsin soldier, O. Tolefson -- so far as is known unrelated to Knudson. (Peter Knudson Brye is listed as Peter Knudson in Wisconsin Civil War records.) The fourth letter dated 1916, is from Knudson's niece, Martha Brye, and was written to Waldemar Ager, to whom she was sending Peter Knudson's letters and through whom the letters eventually were given to the State Historical Society. The two letters of Peter Knudson [Brye] are not the originals; they are handwritten transcriptions of the originals by Martha Brye. The letter from O. Tolefson, however, is probably original. Included are typewritten transcriptions of all four letters in Norwegian and English translations made by Archives processor Paul Rood with generous assistance from Assistant Professor Frankie Shackelford, Department of Scandinavian Studies, University of Wisconsin-Madison, December 13, 1978.
