The letter is written on a folio-sized folded sheet, and is directed to an unidentified cousin Mary, back in New England. Much of it is given over to news of Mary Crowell's two soldier brothers and other locally recruited members of Co. E, 15th Illinois Infantry, recently engaged at the battle of Shiloh (6-7 April 1862). The "R" of the letter is the younger of the two brothers, Cpl. Rufus B. Tucker (b. 1841), who was mustered in to Co. E on 24 May 1861. The older of the brothers, Pvt. Henry Z. Tucker (b. 1837), was also an original member of Co. E. By the standards of the time, then, both men were veterans, though as was the case with most of the troops at Shiloh, neither had prior experience of combat. Crowell's letter, of course, is primarily concerned with the casualties in Co. E, since all its men were recruited in Jo Daviess County, and most were residents. Crowell states that "Co E. suffered most of any in the 15th reg. 10 killed & 20 wounded," and these figures, probably derived from lists published in newspapers, appear to be more or less accurate. Army records show that ten members of the company were in fact killed at Shiloh, and that another nine men died of wounds suffered in the battle. Crowell mentions all four casualties from Nora: two dead (Pvt. Emory Cowen and Cpl. Lycurgus Haskel) and two wounded (her brother Rufus and 2nd Lt. John W. Luke, who was the company's ranking officer in the field and who was in fact wounded in both legs). In any case, Co. E was decimated at Shiloh, and communities across Jo Daviess County were left with the sad consequences. Crowell describes the halting process whereby news of the battle and its casualties reached the county: broadly painted newspaper accounts, followed by the receipt of letters "that some were wounded and some killed," and eventually the return of the furloughed wounded and the arrival of the bodies of the dead. Crowell summarizes the experience for her cousin: "I think we can now realize what war is."