Color illustrated postcard of American soldiers gathered around a campfire in campaign hats, the flames rising between them — and floating above in the smoke, a ghostly vision of the home they left behind: a white farmhouse on a winding country road, soft and luminous. The verse reads: "Round the camp-fire's ruddy glow / Scenes of Home-life come and go." Published by the Illustrated Postal Card & Novelty Co. of New York during World War I, this card belongs to the great wave of soldier sentiment postcards that flooded American mail during the war years — men in training camps and overseas posting cards home, families posting cards back, each one a small act of connection across an impossible distance. A sender named Charlie (or Charles) wrote this one home to a Miss Ella Marie, wishing her well from somewhere on the move.

• Card no.: 1362
• Publisher: Illustrated Postal Card & Nov. Co., N.Y.
• Status: Unposted (message written, no stamp)