Collections

This collection contains an invoice detailing the issue of new uniforms and blankets to a detachment from the 1st Massachusetts Cavalry made at Hagerstown, Maryland during the month of November 1862 following the unit's skirmishes in the Shenandoah with Confederates at Snicker's Gap, Markham Station, and Manassas Gap.

This collection contains a rare letter written by a woman named Isabella, and her children, Jumain, Miriam, and Rosa, to her unnamed husband describing their attempts to sail from Galveston, Texas, to join him in Havana, Cuba. Their passage was on a blockade runner that failed as they could not pass through the Union ships. The back of the letter contains short notes from each of the children addressed to their father.

This collection contains a letter from Caroline 'Carrie' Victoria Ozias of Iowa to Sarah "Sallie" Rachel McQuiston from Ohio. Ozias gives an account of the significant military activities happening around her. She describes Confederate prisoners, and details the United States Colored Troops who were guarding them. She also writes about Camp McClellan, where nearly three hundred Dakota or Lakota members were imprisoned. She reports on the riots who are resisting the draft as well as raids and a political rally at Rock Island City

This collection contains nineteen documents and letters that provide detailed documentation of the ownership of a breeding stallion named Wicked William. The documents include three pedigrees, four stud service tickets, five sales records, and seven stampless letters, which provide a first-hand account of thoroughbred breeding and horse racing in Virginia during the early 19th century. The collection traces the breeding of Wicked William and his pedigree.

This collection contains a letter from Isaac French to J. Huntsman, Esq. dated June 17, 1849. French was a guest at Robert Buckner Bolling's plantation in Charles City County, Virginia, called Sandy Point. The letter has no postal markings or stamps, indicating an individual carried it. French describes to his friend his trip to the plantation, the weather, the size of Bolling's fields, the condition of the crops, and the epidemic of cholera and smallpox in Norfolk, Portsmouth, and Richmond. Robert was part of the prominent Bolling family and directed the operations of their holdings. The Sandy Point plantation, on the banks of the James River, was included in the dowry of his wife, Sara Melville Menge. Bolling was said to have over 500 enslaved workers and was active in the American Colonization Society.