This collection contains letters between Wilhelm and Minna Osterhorn and from friends and family. The letters from Wilhelm to Minna sometimes give first-hand accounts of conditions in the U.S. Army during the Civil War. The letters from the Buhner family in Marburg consist mostly of news about family and friends. The collection also contains Wilhelm's journal, which has untranslated receipts in German in the front and his account of his own personal history in the middle, with the rest blank. There is also a bound booklet, “The Genealogy of the Spielman Family,” put together by Armand Spielman, the great-grandson of Wilhelm and Minna Osterhorn, which contains the translation of Osterhorn's journal, translations of some of the correspondence, and photocopies of various family documents and photographs.