Abstract

An accumulation of 19 documents and letters, unrelated in origin, with a bearing on slavery in colonial North America and the United States, 1771-1864.

Scope and Contents Of the 127 letters in the collection, 115 were written by Leonard Williams to his wife Anna Laval Williams during the Civil War. These letters range in date from 18-19 July 1861 to 11 February 1865, and provide a literate, lengthy, and relatively continuous epistolary narrative of Williams's wartime experiences. The letters also stand as one side of an ongoing dialogue with Anna on managing the Greenville household and farm, including the slaves. (During the war the mercantile store was...