Collection contains deeds, plats, account books, regimental papers of North Carolina troops in the Civil War, and a scrapbook of letters and clippings regarding Capehart's death on January 5, 1899.
Collection houses the papers of several generations of a family of southern Virginia and central North Carolina, including Williamsboro, Granville County (now Vance), and southern Virginia. Fourteen photographs added at a later date represent bi-racial descendants of this family who lived in Nutbush and Manson, NC.
The bulk of the collection is comprised of correspondence, 1820-1920, between John and William H. Bullock, a second John Bullock and his wife, Susan M. (Cobb) Bullock, their sons and daughters, and other children and grandchildren. Topics include family relationships and genealogy; illnesses and deaths; farming; enslaved persons and tenants (including some lists of enslaved persons); campus life at the University of North Carolina, 1850s; plantation management; market prices, 1850s-1860s; secessionist and Union sentiments in Granville County; and religious life. Of interest are 46 letters relating to the Civil War in North Carolina and Virginia, with details on camp life, troop movements, and the Battle of Kinston in 1862 and the siege of Petersburg in late 1864. A few letters are send from Johnson Island, Ohio, and a few give some details on the final months of the war in North Carolina.
Volumes include two ledgers, a travel diary, 1848, from a business trip to Tennessee, and Susan Bullock's diary, 1869-1871. Also included are legal and financial papers dating from 1784-1876, and assorted other papers, including a list of about 40 names of enslaved persons from 1857, and medical receipts and accounts.
The Confederate States of America Collection was assembled from various sources and includes a variety of materials originating from administrative bodies within the Confederate States of America, including the Army, Executive Department, Congress, state governments and agencies, and the Navy. In addition to official records, the collection also includes some personal correspondence and miscellany.
The CSA Congress division contains miscellaneous papers as well as original and typed copies of acts and statutes of the CSA Congress.
The Executive Department papers contain records of various offices of the Cabinet with the respective bureaus under each office, including the Justice Department, Navy Department, Post Office Department, State Department, Treasury Department, and War Department.
Also included are records of various Army units including: Army of Mississippi, Army of Tennessee, Army of Northern Virginia, Department of South Carolina and Georgia, Wheeler's Calvary, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Virginia.
Another group of Army related records is organized by record type and includes hospital records, military telegrams, and Quartermaster records, among others.
State government records exist for Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Virginia, and state agency records exist for North Carolina and Georgia and are divided into two groups: the Court Records for the Pamlico District of North Carolina, and the poor relief and claims papers of North Carolina and Georgia.
Miscellany includes soldiers' letters, prison papers, oaths of allegiance, sketch maps, and autographs, as well as a small number of volumes and ledgers.
Personal and political correspondence, legal papers, bills and receipts, and printed material comprise the papers of Duncan McLaurin (1787-1872). Correspondence, including many letters from friends and relatives who migrated to Mississippi, discusses the forced removal of the Choctaw Indians; wars with tribes in Georgia and Alabama; economic conditions, especially the panics of 1837 and 1857; the Bank of the United States; banks and currency; cotton production, markets, and prices. There are many references to slavery, particularly in Mississippi: the sale of slaves, runaway slaves, a lynching of an African American in 1839, the fear of slave insurrections in 1856 and 1860; and the abolition movement. There are also references to the annexation of California; land prices and speculation; the growth of religious denominations in Mississippi and Louisiana; the development of schools in Mississippi, Georgia, and North Carolina, and of Wake Forest Institute (Wake Forest, North Carolina), and Union Seminary (Richmond, Virginia); the temperance movement; the early development of railroads, roads, and canals in North Carolina; politics in North Carolina, South Carolina, Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia; and national politics, including presidential elections, 1832-1848.
Civil War topics in the correspondence include camp life, economic conditions, food supplies, the hope for foreign intervention, morale, conscription and desertion, the blockade of Southern ports, the battles of Murfreesboro (Tennessee), Jackson (Mississippi), Port Royal Harbor (South Carolina), and Hanover Court House (Virginia), and the siege of Vicksburg (Mississippi); economic conditions and Reconstruction government in Mississippi; and difficulties with sharecroppers and debtors.
Legal papers consist of deeds, contracts, wills, court orders, and, after 1850, papers pertaining to the wardship of his sister, Isabel Patterson, and her children after her mental breakdown. Miscellaneous printed items include an atlas, 1835, with a list of slaves dating from the end of the war written on the flyleaf; a memorial to the North Carolina state legislature from the Society of Friends, 1832; a reply to President Jackson's proclamation on nullification; a report of the treasurer of the University of North Carolina to the trustees, 1839; a report of the Merchants Bank of New Bern, the Bank of the State of North Carolina, and the Bank of Cape Fear, 1838; a North Carolina Republican campaign circular, 1873; The Prison News, Raleigh, North Carolina, for March 1, 1932; and other various items.
Collection comprises business and personal correspondence, legal documents, and other papers (chiefly 1862-1873) relating to Thorne's service in the Confederate Army (mainly in Virginia and North Carolina), his farming operations, and his activity as tax assessor of Halifax County. Unprocessed material includes legal and business papers, including receipts and invoices; account book (1862); correspondence, much of it to his wife Alice Maria Harriss Thorne during the Civil War; biographical sketch of Thorne (ca. 1895); a land survey (1821); and an undated drawing of a building.
This collection of correspondence belonging to Edward Wilkinson Kinsley chiefly concerns his efforts in soliciting funds for societies aiding freed slaves, in lobbying for Congressional action to grant equal pay to African American troops in the Union Army, and personally assisting former slaves. The correspondence includes many pieces written by others to Kinsley documenting these issues.
Civil War letters written to Kinsley by soldiers, many of them African Americans, aid society workers, and others describe the service of the 55th Massachusetts Regiment during its service in South Carolina and Georgia, with mention of the 54th Massachusetts, and the 35th Regiments of U.S. Colored Troops; life in New Bern, North Carolina during its occupation, written by soldier Thomas Kinsley (45th Mass. Volunteers); and skirmishes with Confederate troops.
The letters of James Monroe Trotter, African American officer and later U.S Post Office administrator, refer to the African American troops' attitudes toward salary and inequality. Trotter's letter of Nov. 21, l864, describes the celebration held by the 55th Massachusetts Regiment of Colored Troops when their salaries arrived at their camp on Folly Island, S.C. Letters from other black troops also express to Kinsley the desire for salaries as a recognition of equality as well as due payment for services rendered.
The letters from Trotter and other black soldiers also document the history of the 55th Regiment during its service in South Carolina and Georgia. Among the other regiments of the U.S.Army mentioned are the 54th Massachusetts and the 35th and 38th Regiments of U.S. Colored Troops. These last two units are referred to at times by their original names, the 1st and 2nd Regiments of North Carolina Volunteers (Colored).
Reconstruction letters comment on efforts to educate and provide for the freed slaves; citizen reaction to having an African American (James M. Trotter), in charge of enforcing peace and emancipation in Orangeburg, South Carolina; and Massachusetts politics in the 1870s.
Kinsley took a particular interest in Mrs. Mary Ann Starkey and her children, of New Bern, NC. Mrs. Starkey's letters to her benefactor Kinsley include comments on the activities of Kinsley's brother, who was an officer in the U.S. Army, and on the charitable work in New Bern. They also illustrate some of the problems confronting an African American family during the war years.
Among the notable correspondents in this collection are John Albion Andrew, governor of Massachusetts (1861-1866) and supporter of African American participation in the Union Army; William Claflin, industrialist, philanthropist, and governor of Massachusetts (1869-1872); Edward Everett, renowned orator and earlier governor of Massachusetts; Julia Ward Howe, author, poet, and abolitionist; Mary Tyler Peabody, education reformer and author; Carl Schurz, German reformer, statesman, Senator, and general in the Union Army; James Monroe Trotter, African American lieutenant in the Union Army (55th Massachusetts), teacher, and federal employee; Edward Augustus Wild, doctor and Brigadier General in the Union Army (35th Massachusetts), and officials of the N.Y. and New England Railroad Company.
Other items include correspondence from the Provost Marshal's Office, New Bern, N.C.; correspondence and five receipts from the New England Soldier's Relief Association; one letter from the office of the SATURDAY EVENING GAZETTE, Boston, with a reference to James Robert Gilmore's visit to Jefferson Davis; one letter from Samuel May, Jr., abolitionist and Unitarian minister; and one letter concerning Kinsley's friend Mrs. Wild.
Collection comprises two autograph, signed letters written by George W. Scott from Plymouth, North Carolina, to his parents on 1863 April 15 and 16. He describes escaped slaves: "The slaves are told by their masters before they skedaddle that the Yankees will take & sell them to Cuba to pay the expenses of the war. Others have told them that we should kill & eat them but in spite of their stories they come into our lines thick as toads. This is not a single occurence but a general fact" (April 16). Other topics include the general conduct of the war locally and in the state, his patronage of the company's sutler, activities of the infantry's band, and politics surrounding Thomas H. Seymour, Clement Vallandigham, and William Alfred Buckingham. Includes transcriptions of both letters. Acquired as part of the John Hope Franklin Research Center for African and African American History and Culture.
The collection is arranged as follows: Correspondence (1819-1971); Political correspondence (1930-1935); Financial papers (1864-1961); Legal papers (1712-1926); Miscellany; Clippings (1856-1973); Writings (1784-1950); Printed material (1915-1970); Genealogy; Pictures; Volumes; and Oversize folders.
Papers of John Wetmore Hinsdale (1843-1921), lawyer and businessman, relate to his education, courtship, military service, and other activities. The collection contains letters and a diary, 1860-1864, concerning his education at a boarding school in Yonkers, New York, and at the University of North Carolina, 1858-1861; his service in the Confederate Army as aide-de-camp to his uncle, General Theophilus Hunter Holmes, and adjutant to General James Johnston Pettigrew and General William Dorsey Pender, including descriptions of troop movements, comments on many Confederate officers, and accounts of the battle of Seven Pines, the Seven Days' battle, and the battle of Helena; the effects of the Civil War on Southerners at home; and events during Reconstruction. The diary includes excellent descriptions of the battles in which he participated, as well as descriptions of men like Generals Holmes, Pender, Pettigrew, P.G.T. Beauregard, A.P. Hill, Benjamin Hunter, Stonewall Jackson, J.E. Johnston, Robert E. Lee, James Longstreet, J.B. Magruder, Sterling Price, G.W. Smith, and others.
Other sources of information in the collection on the Civil War include the C.S.A. War Department Records Book, a partially indexed, bound collection of orders, circulars, and letters from the War Department and Bureau of Conscription to General Holmes during the period 1863-1865. It is useful for learning Confederate policies about conscription, court-martials, impressment of slaves and freedmen for work on Confederate fortifications, and the Invalid Corps.
Letters between 1861 and 1865 contain information about civilian life during the war, particularly in Fayetteville, N.C., and Little Rock, Ark.; what women did for the war effort; and the fears and morale of civilians. Information about Reconstruction appears in the letters during the period 1865-1870.
Several notebooks from Hinsdale's years in law school are contained in the Volumes series. The collection also includes 25 letterpress books, most of which are indexed, covering the years 1886-1892, with a few breaks in the run (Hinsdale numbered them consecutively, and this run contains volumes 69-101, with volumes 77, 79, 87, 88, 93, 95, and 96 missing). The letterpress books, besides containing entries of an ordinary legal nature, contain information on N.C. government and politics, taxation, roads, railroads, and finances. Volumes 99-101 of the letterpress books deal exclusively with the Carolina Brownstone company, in which Hinsdale was part-owner and president. The company either did not last very long, or it changed hands, because it does not appear in the N.C. list of corporations for 1902-1904. There are also a volume of claim records, 1889-1890, and a collection book, 1870-1876, both concerning Hinsdale's legal practice, and a ledger, 1873-1875, from the Diamond Cotton Chopper and Cultivator Company of Fayetteville, North Carolina, containing accounts for customers and agents, many of which are annotated with remarks about the individual's occupation, character, reliability, and financial circumstances.
The papers of Ellen (Devereux) Hinsdale, wife of John W. Hinsdale, contain material pertaining to the General Pettigrew Chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy; the Daughters of the American Revolution; and the Ladies' Hospital Aid Association of Rex Hospital, Raleigh, North Carolina, including minute books for that organization, 1896-1902, which record the activities of the ladies in fund-raising drives, social events, and sewing bees.
During the 1890s, the focus of the collection switches from John W. Hinsdale and Ellen D. Hinsdale to their children. Papers include the courtship letters, 1903-1904, of Elizabeth Christophers Hinsdale and Jack Metauer Winfree, a physician and instructor at the Medical College of Virginia, including comments by Winfree on his work; courtship letters, 1908, of Annie Devereux Hinsdale and Harold Vincent Joslin, and letters concerning World War I, including an account of Ellen D. Hinsdale's decision to join the American Red Cross in France and descriptions of working conditions in a war industry. The courtship letters of Elizabeth C. Hinsdale and Dr. Jack Metauer Winfree in 1903-1904 and of Annie D. Hinsdale and Harold Vincent Joslin in 1908 form a large bulk for this period. Dr. Winfree was a prominent physician and instructor at the Medical College of Virginia in Richmond, and his letters give an interesting view of a medical practice at the turn of the century.
The papers, 1930-1935, of John W. Hinsdale, Jr., pertain mainly to his political career as a state senator from Wake County, North Carolina, and as a candidate for governor of North Carolina, 1932, and contain material reflecting his interest in changing the state tax structure, organizing the North Carolina State Board of Health and the North Carolina Board of Examiners, and establishing state control over maintenance of country roads. Also includes material on the conflicts with the R.J. Reynolds Company.
The collection contains a series of legal papers, 1712-1926, and a series of financial papers, 1864-1961. Miscellaneous items include clippings of Civil War reminiscences, weddings and deaths, and the legal career of John W. Hinsdale, Sr.; an oversize 1847 map of Raleigh showing locations of buildings and ownership of land; family photographs and family writings; genealogical material on the Hinsdale, Devereux, Lane, and Pollock families of North Carolina, the Livingston and Bayard families of New York, and the Johnson and Edwards families of Connecticut; and a volume containing diary entries; school notes on different subjects; and autograph books from John Hinsdale, Sr.'s, years at the University of North Carolina
One volume of interest is the "Liverpool Memorandum-Book," which contains a diary, memoranda, and accounts for 1755 (which a few scattered entries for other years). The anonymous author of this volume lived near Hertford in Perquimons County, N.C. Entries record travel in Bertie, Chowan, Perquimans, and Pasquotank counties. The diarist frequently went to "town," and several references indicate that his residence was close to it. The "town" was apparently Hertford. The volume may have belonged to a member of the Pollack family, since Mrs. Ellen Hinsdale was a descendent through the Devereux line and since they resided in Perquimans during the 1750s.
Family, business, and personal correspondence (chiefly after 1851) of Southgate and of his family. The material concerns Southgate’s insurance business, life in North Carolina, the establishment of Durham, N.C., and of Duke University; the Southgate family in the Civil War, Reconstruction in North Carolina, education and civil activities in North Carolina, South Carolina, and Virginia, and schools in Durham; and the activities and genealogy of the Southgate family. Correspondents and persons mentioned include Mattie Logan Southgate Jones, Delia Haywood Wynne Southgate, and Myra Ann Muse Southgate.
This collection contains papers of the related Jarratt, Puryear, Clingman, Poindexter and Cash families, and especially of Isaac A. Jarratt, soldier in the War of 1812, landholder, merchant, and distiller.
The collection concerns family matters and local affairs; the education of Mary Jarratt at St. Mary's College, Raleigh, North Carolina; the education of Augustus Jarratt at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and conditions at the university preceding the Civil War; Isaac Jarratt's partnership with Tyre Glen in the slave trade between Alabama and North Carolina, 1830-1835; the Creek War of 1836; United States relations with Mexico, 1842; a survey of Wilson, North Carolina, 1851; frontier conditions in Texas; the Civil War, including troop movements in North Carolina and Virginia, conditions in the Confederate Army, conscription, lists of absentees, official orders for enrolling new age groups, conscription lists, casualty lists, payments to widows, and home conditions; freedmen, including letters from former enslaved persons inquiring about relatives; Jarratt's efforts to get whiskey during the war; North Carolina politics after the war; whiskey taxes; conditions in California; a Texas counterfeit affair in which A. B. Clingman was unjustly suspected; the business affairs of the Jarratt family; the administration of the estates of Samuel L. Davis, William Doss, Sally Doss, and Polly Sapp by Isaac Jarratt and of the estate of Richard Clauselle Puryear (d. 1867) by Jarratt and by his son, Richard Clingman Puryear (b. 1848); and the law practice of Richard Clingman Puryear, including the collection of many claims, 1870-1900.
Volumes include a plantation account book, 1834-1881, containing lists and prices of enslaved persons bought and sold in 1834 and 1835; a plantation account book, 1866-1871, recording supplies and cash advanced to tenants; an administration book, 1845-1848, concerning the estate of Matthew A. Doss; and a ledger, 1869-1870, of Isaac A. Jarratt & Sanderford, a general mercantile firm, containing the records of the sale of whiskey.
