Hesburgh Libraries

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Letters written by and to Sarah Stilson, a teacher in New York State, during the Civil War. At the heart of the group is a lively correspondence of 25 letters between Stilson and Oliver Waldo West, a Union cavalry officer.

Scope and Contents This collection consists of personal papers of members of the Paris and Heard families of Augusta and Rockingham counties, Virginia. Materials date from 1852 to 1937, with the Antebellum, Civil War, and Reconstruction years all represented. Included are land deeds, contracts, and militia records of James R. Paris, as well as family correspondence and photographs. The Antebellum letters are chiefly between Lucy Paris, James’s wife, and her family, while later correspondence is mainly between...

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5 personal letters written between August 1861 and February 1862 by Confederate army lieutenant Christopher C. McKinney, as regimental adjutant, 8th Tennessee infantry.

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A manuscript diary maintained by Confederate States Pvt. H. H. Wiseman, Co. B, 1st Tennessee Heavy Artillery, recounting Wiseman's experiences in Union prison camps at Governors Island and Elmira, New York in 1864-1865.

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A Civil War manuscript diary kept by David B. Arthur of Grant County, Wisconsin, as 1st sergeant and 2nd lieutenant in Co. I, 20th Wisconsin Infantry. Entries range from October 1862 to June 1863, when the regiment was serving in Missouri and Arkansas.

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A short-entry Civil War manuscript diary of Confederate States soldier Thomas Benton Alexander, written as a member of the 1st Tennessee Heavy Artillery Regiment, Company B (3rd). Much of the content dates from the final year of the war, when Alexander was captured at Mobile Bay and imprisoned at Elmira, New York.

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A Civil War family correspondence of 19 letters occasioned by the Confederate States military service of Jesse Albert Shipman, Co. G, 1st North Carolina Cavalry. The Shipmans were from Henderson County, in the North Carolina highlands.

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A manuscript personal letter written from the defenses of Richmond on 1 December 1864 by Confederate soldier Cicero R. Barker, 8th North Carolina Infantry.

Scope and Contents Letter from Henry S. Figures, a young Alabama salesman, to his father. Much of the letter's content treats the military plans and aspirations of Figures' acquaintances, as the Confederacy hastened to mold existing state militias and fresh volunteers into a national army. Many of those mentioned would serve with Figures in the 4th Alabama: Clifton Walker, Samuel Moore, and Fielding Bradford all were privates in Company I, and William Fariss, like Figures, served in Company F. The regiment had...

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A family correspondence of 51 items whose principal authors are George Thomas and his wife, Minerva Everton Thomas, of Spencer County, Indiana. Most of the letters date from 1862-1863, during George Thomas's Civil War service as quartermaster of the 53rd Indiana Infantry.

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A small group of papers originating with the Read family of the central Shenandoah Valley in Virginia. Included are 28 letters written by three different family members during the Civil War: Confederate States soldier Thomas Griffin Read, Co. I, 33rd Virginia Infantry (10 letters); his wife Martha White Read, of Augusta County (15 letters); and the CS artilleryman John Henry Read (3 letters).

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A group of seven Civil War era letters and notes written by two members of the Shriver family of Owings Mills, Maryland. Much of the content relates to Thomas Herbert Shriver, who served at Gettysburg with the 1st Virginia Cavalry (CS) and subsequently attended the Virginia Military Institute.

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A collection of about 50 manuscript personal letters directed to the Lowell, Massachusetts law student William H. Anderson. Many are written from friends around Natchez, Mississippi, during the secession crisis of 1860-61.

Scope and Contents This report of the Confederate Brigadier General Daniel Ruggles, dated 22 October 1862, was written one day after the latter had assumed command of District One of the army's Department of Mississippi and East Louisiana. Roughly speaking, the district encompassed the eastern half of Mississippi, minus the counties on the Gulf Coast. Before the reorganization of 21 October, Ruggles had been in temporary command of the district encompassing western Mississippi, called the District of the...

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A 4-page folio-sized letter written on 15 November 1862 by Confederate private M. A. Harvey, Co. B, 8th Texas Cavalry, describing actions during Bragg's invasion of Kentucky in September-October.

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A manuscript Civil War diary of Confederate States Army lieutenant Alfred Moore, written as a member of Co. I, 11th Virginia Cavalry. Moore's entries extend from September 1864 to February 1865: events covered include Hampton's cattle raid and Rosser's raid on Beverly, West Virginia.

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Manuscripts and other materials relating to the Confederate army service of the brothers Henry, Martin, Robert, and Joseph Leonard, of Iredell County, North Carolina, including records of Co. C, 48th North Carolina Infantry.

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A collection consisting primarily of 29 Civil War manuscript letters written by Union private Charles C. Caley, during his service in Co. F, 105th Ohio Infantry.

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A group of 27 personal letters written by, to, or about James Monroe Meek, an East Tennessee lawyer and legislator jailed by the Confederates for his Unionist sympathies. Most of the correspondence dates from the Civil War.

Scope and Contents A complete set of five profusely illustrated unused envelope covers which use the sport of boxing as a metaphor for the political and military conflict between the United States of America and the rebellious Confederate States of America in 1861. The images on each envelope depict the ultimately victorious President of the United States Abraham Lincoln and the President of the Confederate States of America Jefferson Davis in a boxing match. The envelopes were published by J. H. Tingley, 152...

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A manuscript Civil War diary of Confederate States Army lieutenant George H. Murphy, written as a member of Co. D, 23rd Virginia Cavalry. Entries extend from 1 March to 13 April 1865, and recount the author's movements up and down the Shenandoah Valley.

Scope and Contents Of the seven manuscripts in the group, five are letters by Pratt to his mother or father—one written from western Virginia in August of 1861, and four from various locations in the Shenandoah Valley, December 1862 to November 1863. The two remaining documents (March-June 1862) are letters to Pratt from the headquarters of Brig. Gen. Wise, responding to Pratt's own, perhaps repeated entreaties that Wise use his influence to expedite Pratt's exchange. Pratt's initial assignment to Wise's...

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This collection consists of a single letter sent from James Stephens to a woman named Nan, as well as a poem, “Optimist,” by Stephens.

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Sixteen personal letters written by the brothers John Nathaniel Peed and James Oscar Peed, during their Civil War service in Co. I, 9th Virginia Cavalry (CS). Many of John Peed's 14 letters were written in 1864-65, from the environs of Petersburg.

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A group of 18 family letters, 14 of which were written in 1862-63 by Confederate Lt. Col. William W. Sillers of the 30th North Carolina Infantry. The letters are directed to Sillers' sister, Frances Sillers Holmes, in Sampson County, North Carolina.

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A pair of manuscript letters, each dated 4 October 1862, written to the Philadelphia Quaker Mary Bettle by two relatives, Sophia Jones and Elizabeth Williams. An enclosure in Jones's letter describes audiences of the Ohio Yearly Meeting of Friends with Salmon P. Chase, Edwin M. Stanton, and Lincoln, regarding exemption from the draft.

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77 Civil War letters of Harrison E. Randall of Fulton County, Ohio, written from the field as a member of Co. H, 100th Ohio Infantry. Most were written from Kentucky (September 1862 to August 1863), Georgia, during the Atlanta campaign (June to August 1864), Alabama and Tennessee, including letters from the Nashville campaign (October 1864 to January 1865) and North Carolina (March and April 1865).

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Around 80 manuscripts retained by John E. and Elizabeth Savage Brownlee in the decades following their emigration from Ireland to the United States in 1851. The greater number are personal letters written by family members.

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A four-page folio-sized manuscript letter written on 28-29 April 1862 by Mary Crowell of Nora, Illinois. Much of the letter is given over to news of members of Co. E, 15th Illinois Infantry, recently engaged at the battle of Shiloh.