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Public official, Indian agent, and Territorial Governor of Utah (1857-1861). Family and political correspondence, mainly of the 1850s, with material on Mormon history, including the "Mormon War," and on frontier and pioneer life. Includes journals, scrapbooks, letter books, and proceedings pertaining to councils and negotiations with the Blackfoot Indians and other tribes (1855). Letters of Cumming's wife, Elizabeth Wells Randall Cumming, describe incidents on her trip to Utah with her husband when he was named governor with frontier conditions and Indian troubles. Cumming's official letter books contain correspondence to James Buchanan, Lewis Cass, Howell Cobb, John B. Floyd, Albert S. Johnston, Brigham Young, and others. Additional correspondents include W.W. Bibb, J.S. Black, William Medill, B.F. Perry, Franklin Pierce, Alexander Stephens, and G.M. Troup. Includes papers of William Clay Cumming, a brother, pertaining to his studies at Princeton University (1805) and at Litchfield Law School; his accounts of opposition to Federalism in New England; his experiences in the War of 1812; travels in the Mississippi Valley and the South; and a few comments on Brazil and Uruguay (1816). The collection also contains papers from Thomas Cumming.

The Funkhouser family lived in Virginia with members moving West with the expansion of the Unites States. Other Funkhouser descendants moved into Ohio, Maryland and New Jersey. The collection contains correspondence, diary and other papers, chiefly 1836-1908, of the Funkhouser family of Mount Jackson, Va. including Andrew Funkhouser. Topics discussed include conditions in the West, opposition to slavery, and economic conditions in the U.S. after 1837; Civil War letters discuss camp life of Union and Confederate soldiers and the state of the South. Post-war letters are mainly personal. Includes a diary (1863) kept by G. H. Snapp, a minister of the United Brethren in Christ Church, telling of religious life among soldiers and civilians.

Family of Quaker merchants and millers residing in Guildford County, North Carolina, with relatives in Indiana and Montana Territory. Collection comprises a rich array of business and personal correspondence and other papers (chiefly 1835-1887) relating to Newton D. Woody, merchant and miller of North Carolina, his Civil War service, and his flight to Indiana in 1865 and eventual return to N.C.; the activities of Frank H. Woody, who traveled to and described life in the territories of Washington and Montana before and after the Civil War. There are also important materials regarding the Civil War and its aftermath, including descriptions of camp life by Confederate soldiers, one of whom was in the 21st North Carolina Regiment; experiences of Confederate soldiers in Union prisons at Johnson's Island, Ohio, and Elmira, New York, during the war; accounts of Reconstruction in Augusta, Georgia, given by a Union sympathizer, 1867-1868, as well as economic conditions in North Carolina before, during, and after the Civil War. There are also some documents and letters concerning African American life in the South before, during, and after the war. Printed matter in the collection relates to the activities of Unionists in North Carolina during the Civil War and opposition to Ulysses S. Grant and the Radicals. Other topics include the activities of Woody relatives who had migrated to Indiana; the activities of the children of Newton and of his brother, Robert Woody, postmaster, miller, and merchant; and the history of the Society of Friends in antebellum North Carolina. Includes legal documents, business records, and minutes of the Orange Peace Society, Orange County, N.C.

Duncan McLaurin was a farmer, teacher, lawyer, and state legislator of Richmond County, North Carolina. Correspondence, bills, receipts, legal and other papers, and printed matter (1822-1872), of McLaurin and members of his family. McLaurin's papers (mainly 1822-1850) relate to economic conditions in North Carolina, South Carolina, and the U.S. in general; the development of infrastructure and education in North and South Carolina; the Civil War; politics in North Carolina, South Carolina, Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia; and national politics, including presidential elections from 1832 to 1848. Civil War topics 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), Hanover Court House (Virginia), and the siege of Vicksburg (Mississippi). A large amount of correspondence from relatives in Mississippi (circa 1830-1867) concerns frontier conditions, slavery, politics, agricultural and labor problems, sectionalism and nationalism in Mississippi, Reconstruction conditions, and family affairs. 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. Includes an atlas with a list of slaves circa 1864 written on the flyleaf.

The Munford and Ellis families were connected through the marriage of George Wythe Munford and Elizabeth Throwgood Ellis in 1838. The earliest papers from the Munford family center around William Munford (1775-1825) of the first generation, George Wythe Munford (1803-1882) of the second generation, and the children of George Wythe Munford, notably Thomas Taylor Munford (1831-1918), Sallie Radford (Munford) Talbott (1841-1930), Lucy Munford and Fannie Ellis Munford. Papers of the Ellis family begin with those of Charles Ellis, Sr. (1772-1840), Richmond merchant; his wife, Margaret (Nimmo) Ellis (1790-1877); and his brother, Powhatan Ellis (1790-1863), jurist, U.S. senator, and diplomat. Later materials include letters from Thomas Harding Ellis (1814-1898), son of Charles and Margaret Ellis, as well as some materials from their other children and grandchildren. Collection contains family, personal, and business papers of three generations of the Munford and the Ellis families of Virginia. The papers contain information on politics, literary efforts, social life and customs, economic conditions, and military questions principally in nineteenth century Virginia. Includes materials on the Civil War and Reconstruction.

Army officer, of Caldwell Co., N.C. Correspondence, diary, legal documents, account books, mercantile records, surveying records, and other papers (chiefly 1838-1880) of Lenoir, of his father, William Lenoir, and of his children. The early papers concern horse breeding, legal matters, deism in North Carolina (1790s), and the international situation (1790s). Thomas Lenoir's papers make up the majority of the collection and relate to the settlement of his father's estate, activities of his brother in Tennessee and his sons at the University of North Carolina, and antebellum agriculture in North Carolina. Postwar letters pertain mainly to politics, agriculture, cattle diseases, family matters, student life at the University of North Carolina and at Davis Military School, Winston (now Winston-Salem), N.C., North Carolina militia, and Civil War reminiscences. Correspondents include W. J. Bingham, Calvin J. Cowles, Charles F. Deems, S. F. Patterson, Lewis Williams.

Planter and merchant families of New Bern (Craven County), North Carolina. Business and personal correspondence of four generations of the Biddle and Simpson families of New Bern, N.C. Most notable are the papers of John Simpson (1728-1788), locally a prominent Revolutionary figure; his son, Samuel; and his great-grandson, Samuel Simpson Biddle (1811-1872). Topics include financial affairs, including deeds, property in Boston, and the shipment of goods; activities of the Baptist Church in the New Bern area; agricultural and business interests; education at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill; and children's education in the 19th century. Many letters were written during the Civil War and revolve around the activities of S.S. Biddle, Jr. and James W. Biddle, containing brief descriptions of campaigns, troop movements, traitors, fortifications in South Carolina, camp life, and epidemics. The collection also has 12 volumes of plantation and personal accounts, bills, and receipts, loose deeds and notes, as well as information from the estates of Samuel Simpson and William Biddle.

Jones was a lawyer, collector, Confederate soldier and historian from Savannah, GA. Collection includes correspondence, journals, commonplace books, lecture notes, scrapbooks, autograph albums and other papers. The material ranges in date from 1757-1926.

Collection consists of two series, Civil War Papers and Lee Family Papers, acquired and assembled by collectors Alfred and Elizabeth Brand. Materials relate to the Lee family, including Francis Lightfoot Lee, Henry Light Horse Harry Lee, Richard Henry Lee, and Robert E. Lee, as well as Civil War history, including battle reports, correspondence between Confederate and Union leaders and officers (such as Braxton Bragg, Jefferson Davis, William T. Sherman, and Thomas 'Stonewall' Jackson), presidential pardons and oaths of allegiance, and some printed materials.