Collections

A letter from Armistead Burwell, Camp Curtis, Land's End, Virginia to his brother, discusses various aspects of their shared military experiences. He rejoices at the good news that his brother is now in winter quarters. He thinks their brother Charles should be discharged for disability. The two companies of his regiment have been moved to redoubts and rifle pits across a strip of land between the James and Warwick Rivers. He heard that the Merrimac is completed. He inquires for his brother's thoughts about an introduced bill to reorganize Virginia forces. He declares he is fighting for liberty and country.

The Civil War Collection is an artificial collection of material, chiefly 1861-1865, pertaining to the American Civil War including items from both Union and Confederate forces. The collection includes official correspondence, general and special orders, descriptions of campaigns and battles, articles concerning the war, and artifacts. There are pardons, poems, songs, autographs, maps, muster rolls, pen and ink sketches of camp life, engineers' drawings, and a memorandum of signals used by Confederate steamers when approaching batteries.

Letter written by Henry E. Edmunds to Claiborne G. Barksdale, a member of the 14th Virginia Regiment, about the patriotic fervor of the early days of the American Civil War, shortly after Virginia ceded from the Union the month before. In the letter, Edmunds wrote of Barksdale joining the Virginia troops, how Edmunds would make a great soldier if he was younger, a local man named Townes gathering up troops to join the fight, and the great condition of the wheat crop.

Papers, 1838-1865, of the Crowder and Phillips families of Lunenburg and Mecklenburg counties, Virginia. Includes letters, 1861-1865, of William H. Phillips while serving in the 14th Virginia Infantry Regiment on Jamestown Island, at Chester, Virginia and near Farmville, Virginia.