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Confederate soldier, member of the 55th North Carolina Infantry Regiment, Co. K; and farmer, from Granville County, N.C. The papers of James King Wilkerson and his family date from 1820 to 1929, and consist of Civil War correspondence, a number of almanacs used as diaries, copybooks, and a few other miscellaneous papers, including a genealogical sketch. There is correspondence by Lillie Wilkerson and Luther Wilkerson, James' children, discussing social life and customs, illnesses and hospitals, employment, and personal matters; and several letters from a soldier in France during World War I. There are also two early issues of the Berea, N.C. Gazette, one from 1876, with comments on the Hayes-Tilden election, and one from shortly thereafter. The Civil War letters, written by James Wilkerson to his family, contain references to the C.S.S. Virginia, detailed descriptions of marches, comments on crop conditions as he moved from place to place, his Civil War service around Petersburg, Virginia, late in the war, and his stay in the General Hospital at Greensboro, N.C. in 1865.

U.S. naval officer and explorer, of Washington, D.C. Family correspondence, chiefly relating to naval cruises of Wilkes and his son, John Wilkes; the U.S. Exploring Expedition, 1838-1842, to Antarctica, the Pacific Islands, and the Northwest Coast of the U.S., including preliminary planning, the voyage itself with detailed descriptions of places visited, and publishing the results; gold mining and milling in North Carolina; the Civil War; and Wilkes family business ventures in North Carolina; together with legal and financial papers, writings, printed material, clippings, and other papers. Includes correspondence, 1848-1849, with James Renwick (1792-1863) and others.

Confederate Army officer, planter, and official of Hampton County, S.C. Mainly personal letters of Williams and his family, concerning his Civil War military service in the 25th and 47th Georgia Infantry Regiments, his efforts to become a planter after the war, his personal life, and his work as sheriff and auditor of Hampton County, S.C. Includes early land deeds, and letters from a physician who served in Cuba and Puerto Rico during the Spanish-American War.

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.