Collections : [West Virginia and Regional History Center]

Captain Edward J. Willis served as chaplain and captain of Company A of the 15th Virginia Infantry Regiment from December 1861 to his resignation in February 1864. Collection contains photocopies of Willis's Civil War records, including his Compiled Service Record from April 1862 to February 1864; official report of the battle of Antietam, 23 September 1862; a request for an extended leave to take care of his family in Orange County, Virginia, in January 1864; and letter of resignation dated 10 February 1864. Willis resigned as a minister and due to family hardship.

Letters to their family in Ohio from James M. Hartley and Thomas J. Hartley. James M. Hartley served in the Ohio 116th. Volunteer Infantry, Company B stationed during the Civil War at Romney, WV; Winchester, VA; Sharpsburg, MD; Martinsburg, WV; and Richmond, VA. Thomas J. Hartley was mustered into an unidentified Ohio regiment at Camp Ripley, OH and served in Stanford, KY and Nicholasville, KY. These letters, most being from James M. Hartley, reflect conditions in the U. S. Army in the field during the Civil War mentioning late payroll payments and occasional shortages of food rations. The correspondence of James M. Hartley is more detailed with him giving his opinions about the battles of Antietam, Chancellorsville, and the siege of Richmond. Often he notes that the Confederates surrender due to inadequate food provisions.

Diary and memoir of a Confederate soldier, railroad laborer, and shop owner from Grafton. The memoir begins with Mugler's birth in Alsace-Lorraine in 1838, and covers his immigration to the United States; enlistment in the United States Army in 1851; military duty in New York, Boston, Rhode Island, Texas, California, and the Washington Territory where he participated in the expedition against the Yakima Indians as a member of Company B, Third Regiment, United States Artillery, under Phil Sheridan; and his return to Orange County, Virginia, where following the passage of the Secession Ordinance he enlisted in the Thirteenth Virginia Infantry serving as chief musician. The memoir concludes with Mugler's military career during 1861-1862. The diary covers the remainder of his military service, 1862-1864, and his confinement as a war prisoner at Elmira, New York, 1864-1865. Following the war, Mugler returned to Washington, D.C., and eventually gained employment with the National Cemetery Corps, working at various Virginia battlefields. While in Virginia he served as a delegate to the Virginia Republican Convention of 1867. He worked at the National Cemetery at Grafton and for the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, eventually becoming superintendent of painters on the Road Division in West Virginia. After 1874 he worked briefly as a self-employed painter, and then opened a paint and hardware store in Grafton which he managed until the end of his life. Subjects include the Battle of Mine Run, the retreat from Antietam, the Battle of the Wilderness, prison life at Elmira, New York; reconstruction in Virginia; railroading and the railroad towns of Keyser, Oakland (Maryland), Parkersburg, Fairmont, and Wheeling; the strikes of 1877; interviews with Generals Ord and Sheridan; the Murphy Temperance Movement and W.C.T.U. activities; the Liberal Republican movement of 1872; the Greenback Party; the Chicago World's Fair of 1893; political figures such as John S. Carlile, John G. Carlisle, John T. McGraw, John W. Mason, Frank Hereford, John E. Kenna, John A. Logan, James G. Blaine, and "Sockless" Jerry Simpson.

Papers of Jewett Palmer, a Union Army officer, Mayor of Marietta (Ohio), and Republican official of Washington County (Ohio). Includes correspondence, daily journals, clipping scrapbooks, military records, genealogical and autobiographical notes, and printed materials. The papers regard the activities of Company B of the 18th Ohio Volunteer Infantry (OVI) and Company G of the 36th OVI. There are also papers of Palmer's wife, Saida Scott, who taught music. Addendum of 1996/09/23 contains a muster roll of Company G, 36th OVI, signed by Captain Jewett Palmer, for 10/31/1863 - 12/31/1863. See Scope and Content Note for more information.