Collections

A sketch of the life of John Daily, a merchant and dentist of Westernport, Maryland, and Piedmont, West Virginia, who was born at Springfield, Hampshire County. Mainly an account of Daily's Civil War service with the Eleventh Virginia Cavalry, C.S.A., and his participation in the capture of General George Crook and General Benjamin F. Kelley at Cumberland, Maryland, in February, 1865.

Papers collected by Roy Bird Cook, a Lewis County native and Charleston pharmacist, who in his role as historian, researcher, and author, was a pioneering and effective advocate for the preservation of West Virginia history. This collection includes the papers he collected in connection with his research, including documentation of the Civil War in West Virginia, Stonewall Jackson and his family, and genealogy of North Central West Virginia, among other topics. Materials include letters and papers of the Hays family, including Samuel L. and Peregrine Hays of Gilmer County (1836-1884, 1952-1962, undated [includes facsimiles]); records of the Confederate 31st Virginia Volunteer Infantry Regiment, and later correspondence, clippings, and papers about the regiment and its members (ca. 1856-1955, undated [includes facsimiles]); various collections of individual and family papers and Civil War correspondence (1793-1974, undated [includes facsimiles]); original and copies of Stonewall Jackson letters and papers, as well as papers pertaining to Jackson family members (1801-1963, undated [includes facsimiles]); and materials related to the history of pharmacy and medicine, with a special focus on West Virginia (ca. 1832-1961, undated [includes facsimiles]). There is also an extensive series of bound notebooks containing manuscripts, transcriptions, clippings, genealogies, pamphlets, and images regarding the following topics: Stonewall Jackson, Mary Anna Morrison Jackson, Colonel George Jackson, and Thomas Jackson Arnold; the Civil War, including historical sketches of battles as well as originals and copies of soldiers' diaries, journals, and letters; Lewis County; Charleston and the Kanawha Valley; Douglas S. Freeman; Granville Davisson Hall; Camden family; George Washington; and other topics.

Correspondence of a Civil War general who had business interests in the Cannel Coal Company, Coal River Navigation Company, James River and Kanawha Company, and the Western Oil Company. Subjects include coal, oil, iron and steel; improvements on the Kanawha, Coal, and Ohio rivers; English investments in the Cannel Coal Company and the Winifrede Mining & Manufacturing Company; and timber prices. Civil War correspondence includes letters from Francis H. Pierpont and General Jacob D. Cox. There are letters from Rosecrans to his wife while commander of Union forces in western Virginia; persons mentioned include Generals John B. Floyd, R.C. Schenck, Jacob D. Cox, George Crook, George B. McClellan, Braxton Bragg, and U.S. Grant. There is postwar political comment on ex-Confederate officers in government positions and U.S. Grant's terms as president.