Decoding the Civil War is a volunteer crowdsource project that aims to decipher and digitize the contents of Civil War telegrams from the Thomas T. Eckert Papers archives. It's a simple matter of being able to read cursive, particularly the fancy style of cursive used 150 years ago. Volunteers won't be the exclusive transcribers of any document; getting many pairs of eyes to decode the written telegrams helps to ensure accuracy. That said, I have no problem whatsoever decoding every word of the above handwriting. However, many of the telegrams contain code words, and don't always make sense as written. If you have some extra time and want to contribute to the preservation of historical documents for future generations, check out the tasks set up at Zooniverse. -via TYWKIWDBI