Skip to content

OPEN TODAY: 10 A.M.–5 P.M.

Tickets

Manuscripts

1861-1863


You might also be interested in

  • Image not available

    Miller family correspondence

    Manuscripts

    The letters between Francis C. Miller and Agnes F. Voris, from 1861 October to 1865 October, document a budding romance between the two. His letters provide weekly updates on the war news and rumors, give very detailed accounts of the camp life and war experiences, personal feelings, religious reflections, and news about the fate of James C. Voris. The letters contain accounts of the Battle of Fredericksburg and the Gettysburg Campaign. In her letters to "Frank," Agnes describes her Presbyterian congregation, rather intense politicking in the community, and discusses war news, including General Robert E. Lee's invasion. There are two four-month gaps in the correspondence, from January to April of 1863 and 1864. The letters of James C. Voris, to his family, from 1854 to 1862, describe his time at school before the war, the minutia of camp life, his stay at the Mansion House Hospital in Alexandria, Virginia, and accounts of the military operations, especially the Battles of the South Mountain and Antietam. There is also some post-war family correspondence, including letters by the Millers to their daughter Kittie, from 1888 to 1900.

    mssHM 68602-68684

  • Image not available

    Transcriptions (typescript), 1862-1863

    Manuscripts

    Colyer's Civil War correspondence, chiefly his letters to his parents, siblings, and friends in Chittenango. The letters discuss war, political, and family news and contain detailed factual accounts of the camp life -- rations, barracks, soldiers' finances, conscripts and substitutes, desertions, drinking, courts martial, hospital, prisons, demobilization, etc.

    mssHM 28943-29056

  • Image not available

    1861-1863

    Manuscripts

    A collection containing approximately 5000 items from 1809 to 1943; the main portion of the collection is the correspondence of several generations of the Waller family centering on Henry Waller, his parents, siblings, wife, children, friends, and business associates. The bulk of the collection consists of the correspondence between Henry Waller and his wife Sarah Bell Langhorne Waller and their children. The detailed letters describe their life in Kentucky and Chicago and discuss family matters; social news; their feelings for each other; their religious reflections (the Wallers were devout Presbyterians); parenting; schools; political affairs; legal practice; and business. Also included are a few pieces of political and legal correspondence, including individual letters by John Marshall, Garret Davis, and John J. Crittenden. Also included are Henry Waller's letters to his parents written during his studies at West Point from 1829 to 1833, and his travels, including a trip to his sister's plantation in Mississippi in 1835. The collection also contains letters addressed to Sarah Bell Langhorne Waller, including those from Confederate prisoners and their families. Also included are items related to the arrest and imprisonment of William S. Waller, letters from Maurice Waller, John Duke Waller, Henry Waller, Jr., and other children to their parents, a group of military records documenting Edward C. Waller's service in the Spanish American War, and genealogical materials. There is also a small group of private and professional correspondence of Henry Waller's father, William Smith Waller who, for more than forty years, served as cashier of the Bank of Kentucky. Included are two letters by George Madison describing the War of 1812 in Kentucky. Other correspondents include Henry Waller's sister Catherine Waller Carson and her husband James Green Carson, a planter who owned and operated Canebrake Plantation in Mississippi, and then Airlie Plantation in East Carroll Parish, Louisiana. Their letters describe life on the cotton plantations, including discussions of enslaved people. There are also letters written by members of other branches of the Waller family as well as the related families of Langhorne, Breckenridge, Marshall, and others.

    mssWaller

  • Image not available

    1863

    Manuscripts

    Correspondence and miscellaneous papers of George C. Harlan, chiefly covering his Civil War experience. The bulk of the collection consists of his letters to his mother Margaret Simmons Hart Howell Harlan and younger brother Edward S. Harlan. George C. Harlan regularly reported to his "Philadelphia headquarters" war news and rumors and recounted the details of his hospital work, including the numerous challenges he faced in his effort to keep his camp and field hospitals up to the "hospital standards of Pennsylvania," and described his patients, colleagues, commanders, fellow officers, soldiers, escaped enslaved persons, and Southern secessionists. His letters contain accounts of the military operations and events he witnessed, including the capture of blockade-runners, the rampage of the Confederate armored warships, the Monitor and the Merrimack, the Peninsular Campaign of 1862, and the siege of Petersburg in 1864. The letters written from Confederate prisons describe Harlan's capture and his medical work in Confederate hospitals. Also included are letters by Ely McClellan (1834-1893), H.W. Rivers, surgeon-in-chief of Kautz Cavalry Division, and others, relating to Harlan's capture and efforts made to secure his release; Harlan's military and professional records, including his Navy commissions signed by Gideon Welles and his muster-out roll; letters of recommendation; pension documents; his obituary, and resolutions by veteran and professional societies and associations on the occasion of his death in November 1909. Also included is a copy of Harlan's book Memoir of Dr. William Fisher Norris, published in 1902.

    mssHM 69448-69628

  • Image not available

    1858-1861

    Manuscripts

    Correspondence and miscellaneous papers of George C. Harlan, chiefly covering his Civil War experience. The bulk of the collection consists of his letters to his mother Margaret Simmons Hart Howell Harlan and younger brother Edward S. Harlan. George C. Harlan regularly reported to his "Philadelphia headquarters" war news and rumors and recounted the details of his hospital work, including the numerous challenges he faced in his effort to keep his camp and field hospitals up to the "hospital standards of Pennsylvania," and described his patients, colleagues, commanders, fellow officers, soldiers, escaped enslaved persons, and Southern secessionists. His letters contain accounts of the military operations and events he witnessed, including the capture of blockade-runners, the rampage of the Confederate armored warships, the Monitor and the Merrimack, the Peninsular Campaign of 1862, and the siege of Petersburg in 1864. The letters written from Confederate prisons describe Harlan's capture and his medical work in Confederate hospitals. Also included are letters by Ely McClellan (1834-1893), H.W. Rivers, surgeon-in-chief of Kautz Cavalry Division, and others, relating to Harlan's capture and efforts made to secure his release; Harlan's military and professional records, including his Navy commissions signed by Gideon Welles and his muster-out roll; letters of recommendation; pension documents; his obituary, and resolutions by veteran and professional societies and associations on the occasion of his death in November 1909. Also included is a copy of Harlan's book Memoir of Dr. William Fisher Norris, published in 1902.

    mssHM 69448-69628

  • Image not available

    1853-1863

    Manuscripts

    The collection, which is arranged chronologically, contains mostly correspondence from Gustavus F. Jocknick to his friend John Wilkin. In the first two letters, which are written from San Francisco, Jocknick talks about San Francisco and his life in California. In his letters of 1860, Jocknick talks about his attempt to find work in New Jersey, the news of the upcoming war, and secession, the possibility of enlisting in the army, Abraham Lincoln, James G. Bennett and Nehemiah Perry. In his letters from 1861 to 1865, Jocknick talks about the impending war, his decision to enlist, William H. Seward, John C. Ten Eyck, Nathaniel Banks, and the election of Abraham Lincoln; he also talks about his enlistment in the 3rd Regiment of New York Cavalry under James Van Alen and John Mix. Jocknick also talks much about the movements of the armies and possible battles and mentions specifically: George McClellan, Charles P. Stone, Ambrose Burnside, Ulysses S. Grant, Benjamin F. Butler, August V. Kautz, G. T. Beauregard, George Mead, and Winfield Scott Hancock. Jocknick also mentions the Emancipation Proclamation and his fellow soldiers' reaction to it which were mostly negative.

    mssHM 72615-72667