Annie Deihm and the Century Safe: Part 1
How the Civil War inspired patriotism and commemoration
| Part 1 of 5 | Next Chapter →|
Release Date: February 10, 2026
A “mighty pretty woman”
On July 1, 1976, President Gerald Ford, Speaker Carl Albert, Representative Corine C. Boggs, Minority Leader Representative John J. Rhodes, and a collection of spectators and Washington reporters gathered in Statuary Hall on the second floor of the Capitol to open a massive 3,500-pound iron safe which had been sealed on Washington’s Birthday of 1879, some 97 years earlier. It was called the “Century Safe” by some, the “Centennial Safe” by others, and it had been all but forgotten to history for more than seven decades.
When the cloudy glass door of the black behemoth was opened, President Ford, “surrounded by statues of statesmen in derby hats and pioneers in buckskins,” reached inside. One of the first artifacts he pulled out was a faded photograph, an albumen print, of a woman of solid presence, her face full and steady, her gaze direct but guarded; the look of someone who’d carried responsibility for others and was unwilling to be diminished.
Peering closely at the nearly 100-year-old image, President Ford quipped, “I don’t have any indication of her name, but she looks mighty pretty.” 1
That “mighty pretty” woman was Annie Deihm.
And this is her story.
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Annie was 24 when her husband, Charles Frederick Deihm, marched off to war with Company H of the 88thPennsylvania Volunteers. It was August 30, 1861, just four months after Rebel forces had bombarded Fort Sumter, and President Abraham Lincoln was in need of patriots.
Charles, a machinist by trade, answered the call.
And eventually Annie would as well.
But not in the beginning. In those first weeks and months of the war, Annie would stay at home and wait. Wait for word from her husband, wait for him to come home, wait for his pay to arrive so she could feed and care for their two young daughters, Ida May and Clara.
Each week it was getting harder to wait.
When Charles had been gone eight months, Annie made a decision. She would wait no more.
She reached out to the Union Quartermaster in Washington, and earned their endorsement to organize a “home sewing army” of sorts, a cadre of women – the wives, sisters, mothers, daughters and widows of local soldiers – employed in the honorable business of manufacturing Union uniforms for the U.S. Sanitary Commission.
It wasn’t charity. It wasn’t Yankee do-goodery. It was a concrete and practical way for Annie to ensure she and the other women left behind in Reading, Pennsylvania, could feed their families while their menfolk were at war.
Survival economics morally framed as patriotism.
“None but those who have opened the boxes and bundles transmitted to the office from the towns and villages of the country, can measure the patriotism, the tenderness, the depth of sympathy sewed into the garments, done up in the packages, and lending fragrance to all the offerings of this womanly beneficence. We have been made better citizens, and happier and more hopeful Christians, by bending over those boxes freighted equally with labor, comfort and love.” - Winfred Scott, U.S. Sanitary Commission, 1861 2
On the eve of 1863, the war’s second, a letter appeared in the Philadelphia Inquirer from a correspondent attached to Charles’ regiment. It had been written on Christmas Day, 1862, with the goal of “presenting to the public a few facts in regard to [the Regiment’s] present condition.”
After listing the action seen – Cedar Mountain, Rappahannock Station, Thoroughfare Gap, Bull Run, Chantilly, Antietam and Fredericksburg – the unnamed writer noted the Regiment hadn’t bee paid for six months:
“Letter upon letter has been addressed to the Paymaster upon this subject, but the only response is, that he has no funds. Can it be possible that our Government’s finances are in such a condition that it cannot pay the troops, who are suffering privations, and fighting its battles? This question is asked almost hourly by the men.
Again, it is pitiful to read the letters which are hourly received by our boys, from their wives, mothers, &c., asking them to send them money to save them from starvation. Can it be expected that men, placed in such circumstances, will go into battle cheerfully, knowing, at the same time, that they have a starving family at home?
This is no exaggerated statement, for I have just heard of another case, similar to the above, but I forebear mentioning names, foreven privates have family pride. Our sick and wounded officers have frequently had occasion to call upon our Paymaster for their pay, but only met with disappointment, and often times insult. Cannot these evils be remedied?” 3
By the time the letter was published, Annie was a successful businesswoman, employing hundreds of “hands”, running a critical wartime supply chain from her parlor. She was managing the logistics, tracking the production, keeping the wolves from the door.
She was also, whether she knew it or not, soon to the be her family’s sole breadwinner.
On February 27, 1863, Charles was issued a surgeon’s certificate of disability and discharged from the military after 545 days of faithful service to the Union.
Annie would later say her husband had been wounded during the battle of Fredericksburg, VA, however a death notice at the time noted, “his health was undermined while in the service, and after lingering on for some months at home, he has at last answered the last ‘roll call.’” 4
Whatever condition sent him home, Charles’ health deteriorated quickly, and he passed away on November 15, 1863, just nine months after his return to Reading . Charles was just 31 and was buried with the “honors of war.”
Annie, now a grieving war widow – one of what would be an estimated 200,000 by the war’s end – soldiered on.
Eight days after her husband’s funeral, Annie published an announcement reassuring her “hands” that their employment with her was secure.
“I have never intended, neither do I now intent to remove from this City,” she wrote. “It is my home, and I have plenty of good, sympathetic friends to stand by me. I am able to attend to my business once again.” 5
On May 30, 1864, Annie paused from her work to officially remember Charles. With flowers blooming in the garden and nearby fields, she and some friends traveled to Reading’s Charles Evans Cemetery and held a small commemorative ceremony honoring Charles – his life and legacy, his service and sacrifice. They decorated his grave with flowers.
It was the start of a tradition Annie would continue for the rest of her life.
Thirty-seven years later, she would write about that first decoration ceremony, claiming it was at her insistence that General John A. Logan, head of the Grand Army of the Republic, issued General Order No. 11., designating May 30, 1868:
“for the purpose of strewing with flowers or otherwise decorating the graves of comrades who died in defense of their country during the late rebellion, and whose bodies now lie in almost every city, village, and hamlet church-yard in the land.” 6
No records exist to substantiate Annie’s claim. Honoring fallen loved ones was not a desire limited to one person, group or moment. It’s likely she was just one among untold mourning families and friends who set aside special days each year to remember their war dead.
Still, it became part of the legacy of patriotism she would wear.
Between May 1864 and the end of the war in April 1865, the Union Army’s massive, sustained offensives – the Overland Campaign, the Siege of Petersburg and Sherman’s March to the Sea and Carolinas Campaign – placed unprecedented pressure on the Quartermaster Department to supply uniforms, particularly following high casualties and the transition to winter. And that pressure filtered down to Annie.
Nearly every week another announcement appeared in the local papers from “Mrs. Deihm, corner of 4th and Spruce”, calling for more “hands”.
Notice: All my hands having Jackets out of any kind, Cavalry or Artillery, will please return them immediately, as I have nearly finished my contract on dark linings and have another contract, for twenty thousand white linings. All good hands wanting steading employment can have it by applying to me, as I have work from Philadelphia and New York, when there is any to be had, and have proved it to last longer than one year. 7
Annie’s ability to retain quality workers and to successfully secure and complete Sanitary Commission contracts, brought attacks along with income, however. Competitors attempted to poach her “hands”. They questioned her methods, profits and character through newspaper articles and letters from concerned citizens who sounded suspiciously like business rivals.
For her part, Annie responded in kind, publishing defensive pieces 8 and letters signed by “A Friend” and “Public Good” whose phrasing bore a remarkable resemblance to her own voice in those same papers. 9
And the women who worked for her came to her defense as well. In a letter signed by 31 women, they called Annie, “a friend to the families and widows of Soldiers,” noting:
“Whenever she gives work out, the room being crowded, she always calls for the Soldier’s widows and wives first and gives them as many as they can make…We have heard her say that she would give employment to any of the soldier’s widows or wives, and if they could not make them she would go to pains to teach them. Where is there another lady that would go to that trouble for the benefit to others?
As for the character of Mrs. Deihm, the people may say as they will, there is not another lady in the city more amiable than she or of one that is more capable in attending to her business than is she.”
“We and her friends know what she is” they concluded, “and that is all that is required.” 10
Annie kept working. Her “hands” stayed loyal.
In May of 1866, the U.S. Sanitation Commission disbanded. The war had ended a year earlier, and new uniforms were no longer needed.
Annie had done her part and then some. Over the course of her four years as a labor contractor, logistics coordinator, and risk manager she had provided employment for more than 400 women in her community and together they had made 400,000 articles of clothing – cavalry and artillery jackets, blouses, pantaloons, overcoats and more – for Union soldiers.
In one instance, when the commission needed 10,000 uniform blouses urgently, Annie and her “home sewing army” had produced them in 48 hours. For those efforts, Annie later claimed she’d received Letters of Commendation signed by both President Abraham Lincoln and Secretary of War Edwin Stanton. 11
She’d discovered she could mobilize people toward a distant goal. She could create systems that lasted beyond individual moments. She could build something bigger than herself.
And she understood that individual effort could create something that outlasted any single person. What that might look like, however, was something she’d not yet decided.
But it wouldn’t be long.
Copyright 2026 Lori Olson White
| Part 1 of 5 | Next Chapter →|
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End Notes
1 “Centennial Safe included in Observations,” News-Pilot, San Pedro, CA, July 7, 1976, P. 9.
2 “Winfield Scott, Washington, September 30, 1861, Sanitary Commission Report , No, 32. Concerning the Woman’s Central Association of Relief at New York to the U.S. Sanitary Commission at Washington, October 12, 1861, New York. P. 42.
3 “The Eighty-Eight Pennsylvania Regiment,” The Philadelphia Inquirer, Philadelphia, PA, December 30, 1862, P. 1.
4 “Died,” Reading Times, Reading, PA, November 18, 1863, P. 2.
5 “Hands Wanted on Army Clothing,” Reading Times, Reading, PA, November 25, 1863, P. 2.
6“Memorial Day Due to a Reading Lady: Mrs. C. F. Diehm, Formerly of This City, Claims to have Originated Memorial Day – Reproductions of Logan’s Order,” Reading Times, Reading, PA, June 30, 1901, P. 3.
7 “Notice,” Reading Times, Reading, PA, April 2, 1864, P. 2.
8“To the Public,” Reading Times, Reading, PA, August 17 18, 1864, P. 2.
9 “For the Times,” Reading Times, Reading, PA, October 24, 1863, P. 2.
10 “Mrs. Deihm’s Success,” Daily, Alta, CA, February 12, 1888.
11 For the Times,” Reading Times, Reading, PA, February 4, 1864, P. 3.
Such an inspirational story about Annie Deihm, a historical figure previousy unknown to me. On a visit to Shepherdstown WV I visited the place where Confederate uniforms were made; not far from Harper's Ferry. But I never thought about where uniforms for the Union came from. Thanks for bringing her story to life. I look forward to the next chapter...
An incredible women. Towards the end of this part, I started to wonder what plan she will devise for herself and her workers once their work making uniforms is no longer needed. I feel confident she will come up with something. Looking forward to Part 2.