By Amelia Kibbe
Editor-in-Chief
Mark Dunkelman said he didn’t realize that a letter he wrote to Father Irenaeus more than 50 years ago would one day help bring a collection more than 40 years in the making to a final resting spot at St. Bonaventure.
Dunkelman’s collection on a Civil War regiment, the 154th New York Volunteer Infantry, consists largely of his research material and photos, and letters and diaries of the members of the regiment. The regiment, established in 1862, marshaled in Chautauqua and Cattaraugus counties and took part in numerous Civil War campaigns, including Gettysburg, Chancellorsville and Rocky Face Ridge.
Until Nov. 15, the collection is on display in The Regina A. Quick Center for the Arts in the Theater Atrium and in two galleries adjacent to the atrium, the Paul and Toni Branch Gallery and the Front Gallery, Evelyn Penman, assistant director at The Quick Center, said.
Dunkelman said his initial interest in the regiment began when he was only a young child, listening to his great grandfather’s stories of the regiment.
And Dunkelman’s early research led him to St. Bonaventure.
“[In] about 1964, I wrote a letter to Fr. Irenaeus Herscher, O.F.M., who was then in charge of the Friedsam library, asking him if the library had any material,” said Dunkelman, who lives in Providence, Rhode Island.
In the 1970s, Dunkelman met Michael J. Winey, and the two began to collaborate on the collection.
“The goal of our research was to write a history of the regiment,” Dunkelman said. “We did that and in 1981 our book “The Hardtack Regiment” was published by the Dickinson University Press.”
After the first publication, Dunkelman continued to work on the collection and wrote about it in five additional books.
“I kept working on more and more stuff after our first book,” said Dunkelman. “I have contacted more than 1,200 decedents of members of the regiment, and they gave me more material, some originals and some copies.”
Then, 10 years ago, he began to look for a permanent home for his collection.
Dunkleman said he knew the people at St. Bonaventure would take good care of his nearly lifelong project.
Dennis Frank, St. Bonaventure’s archivist, said he plans to do just that.
He said student interns have already begun to scan some of the material to make it available in digital format.
“Our hope is to eventually have the complete collection digitized and available on the internet to make access easier for researchers,” said Frank. “Meanwhile, the entire collection is available for research by the university and wider communities by appointment.”
When not on display in The Quick Center, much of Dunkelman’s research material will be housed in the archives’ vault in the library. Other parts, such as many of the artifacts, will be returned to Dunkelman, although he said his entire collection will eventually belong to St. Bonaventure.
For more information about the 154th regiment and Dunkelman’s collection, students can visit his website at www.hardtackregiment.com.
“You can learn a lot about a lot of subjects,” Dunkelman said of his work. “I like to think of this (the 154th regiment) as a prism through which I examine the Civil War, and now other people can do the same.”
When Dunkelman wrote to Father Irenaeus in the 1960s, the library did not have any information or material on the regiment. Now, Dunkelman said, it has one of the largest collections of primary-source material on any Civil War regiment.
kibbeaa13@bonaventure.edu
