This collection houses a cased ambrotype of a Union soldier (probably A. H. Pierce), a photograph of Grandpa Bailey, A. H. Pierce's diary, a guard duty ticket from Camp McClellan, Iowa, and a three-fold pocket surgery kit.

The diary (printed by Kiggins and Kellogg in New York in 1860) details A. H. Pierce's service with the 5th Iowa Volunteers during the Civil War. Pierce daily reports the condition of the weather, mentions the days he performs guard duty or drills, notes whether he received mail from home, and mentions where he and his regiment move. He begins at Camp McClellan, Iowa, near Davenport on 1862 August 30. After training, his regiment is deployed to Columbus, Kentucky by boat and then marches south to Corinth, Mississippi, where they make camp ten miles north of the city on November 8. The unit moves around Mississippi through most of the winter. Pierce reports being appointed wagon master, seeing many good plantations, and foraging in the countryside for bales of cotton and hay marked CSA He later repots going to Germantown, Tennessee for loads of ammunition and to Memphis, Tennessee for clothing. The unit later moves west to Lake Providence, Louisiana and then south to Milliken's Bend (near Vicksburg), where Pierce reports seeing gunboats passing on the river and hearing heavy firing all day on 1863 April 30. Shortly afterward, he was admitted to a convalescent hospital called Crystal Palace, where he writes that 700 sick soldiers are staying without enough nurses or food. Pierce was discharged from the hospital on May 4, but died from typhoid fever on May 14, 1863.