>Day 1: decide on what she wants to do with
the letters. Does she want to share the
messages of love to inspire others? does she
want them displayed? or are they too personal?
would she be willing to sell the stories?
As you always say Gordon: "square 1: what do
you want to do?, what amount of money do you
want? and what are you willing to do to get it?

Since I'm not sure of what it is she wants to
do she might want to do some research in the
following "lake" of the web. The following site
can be a begin point to see if there is any
interest in her letters among Illinois civil
war buffs: the following is part of the web ring
for civil war buffs:

http://www.rootsweb.com/~ilcivilw/

Day 1-4
Join some of the mailing lists and find out
if anyone would be interested in romantic
letters during the period and if the way
they want to use them is ok with her...

Day 4-5:
Regroup and determine which avenue she wants
to pursue after having done research above..

> Visit some sites, find out about the
> campaigns he was involved in, and wrap the
> letters around these. She isn't a writer,
> but she could probably find someone for
> that, don't ya think?

Investigate the mailing list from the Illinois
Civil War website to see who would be interested
in Joint Venture with her or even if some of
those letters might be valuable information to
someone.

As an off cuff response:

Since people are showing more patriotism now
and if she is willing to use parts of her letters
she might get together with a local craft artist
who designs "cards"(greeting). She could approach
the artist about using some of the passages
from her love letters inside the card for verse--
by Valentine Day she could be ready to rollout
some PR on specialized love cards or something
on that order with a local artist as joint venture.