Young-Sanders Center for the Study
of the
War Between the States in Louisiana
Microfilm
Special Collections
William T. Shinn Memorial Library
Manuscript Resources
On the
War Between the States in
Louisiana
(Acknowledgement page 148)
Adams, Israel L. and Family Papers, Mss. 3637, 1813-1890 [Natchez, Adams County, Mississippi; also Arkansas] Location: Reel 1; Confederate Military Manuscripts, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge
Israel L. Adams (1801-1860) was a merchant and farmer of Natchez, Mississippi. He had six children, Harriet Catharine, Mary Eliza, Franklin Oliver “Frank,” Orlander Percival, Marey, and Laura. Frank Adams and his cousins, James and Theodore, fought in the Confederate Army. The Adams family was associated with the Zingline and Shupan families.
This collection consists of 505 items and one manuscript volume. Items include correspondence, bills, receipts, and printed items. Most of the correspondence was written after 1860. Letters written by the Adams children and other members of the Adams, Zingline, and Shupan families describe the Civil War in Arkansas and Mississippi; battles at Baker’s Creek (Champion’s Hill), Atlanta, Georgia, and Vicksburg, Mississippi; local news; illnesses; and deaths. Letters from Orlander P. Adams describe student life at Mississippi College. Other items in the collection include slave bills of sale, Confederate currency, the amnesty oath of Lewis Zingline, home remedies, and papers related to German immigrants. Confederate States Army units documented include the 22nd Mississippi Regiment and the 126th Arkansas Infantry Regiment.
Aiken, Henry T. Papers, 1862-1864, 1884, and 1899 [Louisiana; also Massachusetts] Location: Reel 23 Confederate Military Manuscripts, University of Texas at Austin
This collection consists of family and Civil War correspondence of Henry Aiken. Included is material relating to hospital conditions and camp life. Aiken served in a Massachusetts artillery battery and took part in the attack on Port Hudson, Louisiana, and in the Red River Campaign.
Alexander-Snodgrass Letters, Mss. 1767, 1863-1864 [Bristol, Tennessee; also Georgia] Location: Reel 18; Confederate Military Manuscripts, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge
This collection consists of three items, letters, 1863-1864, of Alexander Snodgrass, a major in the Quartermaster’s Department, 35th Alabama Regiment. The letters tell of procuring salt for the Confederate States Army near Bristol, Tennessee, and wheat near Atlanta, Georgia. Letters comment on skirmishes commanded by Gen. Humphrey Marshall in the area of Bristol, Tennessee, and on the Battle of Resaca, Georgia.
Allen, William M. Correspondence, Mss. 2287, 791, 1858-1863 [Holmesville, Pike County, Mississippi] Location: Reel 1; Confederate Military Manuscripts Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge,
William M. Allen (b. 1832 or 1833) was a farmer of Holmesville, Pike County, Mississippi. His sister, Letty, and her husband, John Houston, owned a farm in Minden, Webster Parish, Louisiana. Both William and his brother, Felix, were Confederate soldiers in the Mississippi Volunteers.
This collection consists of twenty-two items. Pre-Civil War letters from John Houston discuss crops, weather, farmland, Houston’s advocacy of secession, and local social affairs. Civil War letters from various individuals to William M. Allen describe skirmishes in Kentucky and Louisiana, camp life and conditions, duties, and war news, such as the shelling of Port Hudson, Louisiana. Family affairs, illnesses and remedies, and attendance at the New Orleans, Louisiana, School of Medicine are additional topics of discussion in the correspondence. Correspondence of 12 December 1862 includes a poem written from a soldier, William M. Allen, to his wife entitled “The Dream,” describing his vision of her and hopes for an end to war and separation.
Amacker, Obadiah Pearson Family Papers, Mss. 1604, 1861-1959 [East Fecliciana, St. Helena, and West Feliciana Parishes, Louisiana]. Location: Reel 1; Confederate Military Manuscripts, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge
The Amacker family settled in the Florida parishes of Louisiana in the early nineteenth century. Obadiah Pearson Amacker (1838-1910) rose to the rank of acting colonel in the 3rd (Wingfield’s) Regiment, CSA Cavalry. He married Abigail Means Kent in 1864. Following his discharge in 1865, the family moved to Greensburg, Louisiana, where Obadiah practiced law.
This collection includes a Civil War diary kept by Abigail (Kent) Amacker that describes life on the home front in the Florida parishes of Louisiana. A list, 1861, of the officers and men of the first company to leave St. Helena Parish, Louisiana, as part of the 4th Regiment, Louisiana Infantry, and Confederate records transcribed from the Louisiana State Library Commission document the service of the Amacker family in the Civil War. A printed pamphlet, 1959, contains genealogical records of the Amacker family from the eighteenth to the twentieth centuries.
Andry, Michel Thomassin and Family Papers, Mss. 1318, 1840-1882 [St. John the Baptist and St. Charles Parishes, Louisiana] Location: Reel 1; Confederate Military Manuscripts, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge
Michel Thomassin Andry (1811-ca. 1871) owned and operated sugar plantations in St. John the Baptist and St. Charles parishes, Louisiana. His first wife was Martha Henriette Boudousquie and his second was Marie Rosa Haydel (1833-ca. 1877). He was the father of five children. After selling his plantations, he moved to New Orleans, where he lived until his death.
This collection consists of 199 items arranged in three series. The collection consists primarily of personal correspondence, legal documents, and business papers. Most of the letters, many of which are in French, are addressed to Marie Rosa (Haydel) Andry from her brothers, Edouard C. Haydel (1835-1875) and Amelius M. Haydel, and include descriptions of various aspects of their participation in the Civil War. The Battle of Shiloh, skirmishes at Camp Beauregard near Mayfield, Kentucky, and the Kentucky campaign are mentioned. Other correspondence includes letters to and from Charles G. Andry, son of Michel T. Andry. Letters from Charles Andrews Johnson (1818-1896), New Orleans attorney and close family friend, concern business matters and his travels. Other letters tell of personal and financial difficulties suffered during the later way years and after the war. In addition to extensive documents relating to the disputed sale of Michel T. Andry’s plantation in St. John the Baptist Parish, the legal papers include a will, a petition to sell slaves, oaths of allegiance, and plat maps showing Andry’s property holdings. Business papers include receipts for taxes, receipts for goods and services, cancelled checks, promissory notes, and travel expenses.
Anonymous Letters, Mss. 1032, 1864-1865 [New Dalton, Georgia, and Natchez, Mississippi] Location: Reel 1; Confederate Military Manuscripts, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge
This collection consists of two items, anonymous letters, 1864-1865. Items include a soldier’s letters to his sister written from the headquarters of the 4th Battalion, Louisiana Volunteers (infantry), wintering at New Dalton, Georgia, relating personal news, 14 February 1864, and from Natchez, Mississippi, describing the reception he received upon his return from the service and his adjustment to civilian life, 10 December 1865. The letters are signed by Rob [otherwise unidentified] to his sister May [otherwise unidentified] in western Virginia.
Archord, M. H. Drawing, Mss. 893, 1931 [East Baton Rouge, Louisiana] Location: Reel 1; Confederate Military Manuscripts, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge
This collection consists of one item, a map, drawn from memory by M.H. Archord in 1931. The map depicts an area on the boundary of East Baton Rouge Parish and Livingston Parish, Louisiana, along the Amite River between Denham Springs on the south and Knox and Pierre Place on the north. The map indicates that a Civil War skirmish or other war-related incident took place in this area in 1864.
Arnold, Thomas Letter, Mss. 3220, 1862 [Mississippi and Louisiana] Location: Reel 1; Confederate Military Manuscripts, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge
This collection consists of two items, including a letter, 26 April 1862, from Lt. Thomas Arnold to Capt. J.K. Mitchell of the Confederate States Navy, written from the towboat Landis describing an action in which he captured and then lost the Federal steamer Resolute. His vessel was towed by the Confederate steamer Defiance and was then fired upon by Federal steamers and rendered inoperable. Included is a list of night signals for the fleet, probably Confederate.
N.B. Related collections among the holdings of the Virginia Historical Society include Mss3M6943a. John Kirkwood Mitchell Papers, 1862-1865, included in UPA’s Confederate Military Manuscripts, Series A.
Avery Family Papers, 1796-1924, Iberia Parish, Louisiana. Location: Reel 10, Antebellum Southern Plantations.
This collection contains correspondence and records of the Marsh and Avery families of the Petite Anse Island Plantation, later Avery Island, near New Iberia in Iberia Parish, Louisiana, and of Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Prominent family members were Dudley Avery (d. 1816), medical officer of the Drafted Militia in New Orleans, 1814-1816; his son, Daniel Dudley Avery (1810-1879), lawyer in Baton Rouge, state senator, judge, and sugar planter; John Craig Marsh (1789-1857), who originally acquired Petite Anse Island Plantation; his son, George Marsh (d. 1859); and his daughter Sarah Craig Marsh (1818-1878), who married Daniel Dudley Avery in 1837.
Included are correspondence and financial and legal records, dated 1817-1895. Over half of the collection consists of financial and legal papers relating to the operation of the Petite Anse Island sugar plantation and salt mines. These include plantation accounts, bills of sale for slaves (some bills executed in New Jersey), bills for merchandise, promissory notes, and receipts. Correspondence includes letters from Dudley Avery serving as a medical officer in New Orleans during and after the War of 1812; letters, 1828-1845, between John C. Marsh and George Marsh at Petite Anse and their relatives in New York and Rahway, New Jersey, about family and plantation affairs; letters, 1846-1847, about life in New Orleans and other matters; and family letters from Baton Rouge and other locations in the 1850s. Correspondence after the Civil War is chiefly to and from Daniel Dudley Avery and his business associates about the sale mines and plantation operations and between Avery and members of his family about plantation and personal affairs, including the struggle to hold onto the family property.
Biographical Note
There are two prominent families in these papers, the Marsh family and the Avery family; they were united by the marriage of Sarah Craig Marsh (1818-1878) to Daniel Dudley Avery (1810-1879) in 1837.
The parents of Daniel Dudley Avery were Captain Dudley Avery (d. 1816) and Mary Ann Browne (fl. 1807-1828). In 1807 Capt. Dudley Avery of Onondaga County, New York, went to Cincinnati, Ohio, where he met and married Mary Ann Browne, daughter of the Reverend John W. Browne. The Averys moved to Baton Rouge, Louisiana, where Captain Avery worked as a physician. He served as a member of the legislature and, in 1813, was appointed as justice of the peace of East Baton Rouge Parish.
The parents of Sarah Craig Marsh were John Craig Marsh (1789-1857) and his first wife, Eliza Ann Marsh (d. 1826). John Craig Marsh was born at Cherry Bank Farm, Rahway, New Jersey, on July 28, 1789. He acquired Petite Anse Island Plantation, later known as Avery Island, ten miles south of New Iberia in Iberia Parish, Louisiana, probably in early 1818. Petite Anse Island is a salt dome whose highest point rises approximately 180 feet out of the surrounding marsh. The soil is fertile and Marsh operated a sugar plantation.
John C. Marsh took with him to Louisiana his wife, Eliza Ann Baldwin Marsh, his older son, John C. Marsh, Jr., his daughter, Sarah Craig Marsh (referred to as “Sally”), and several other relatives of uncertain relationship. He left George Marsh, his second son, with his parents in Rahway, New Jersey. Two other daughters, Margaret (later Mrs. Ashbel Burnham Henshaw), and Eliza Ann (later Mrs. William Robertson), were born on Avery Island. John C. Marsh, Jr., died in 1820 and Eliza Ann Baldwin Marsh died in 1826. After his first wife’s death, Marsh married Euphemia Craig (fl. 1820s), widow of his close friend and business partner, William Stone (fl. 1819-1827).
John C. Marsh was assisted in operating his sugar plantation by his second son, George Marsh (d. 1859), who appears to have been the primary manager of the plantation during the 1840s. In 1849 John Marsh sold his interest in the plantation to two of his sons-in-law, Daniel Dudley Avery and Ashbel Burnham Henshaw. He eventually returned to New Jersey and died there in 1857.
Daniel Dudley Avery was born in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, on April 12, 1810. After his graduation from Yale College in 1830, he studied law with Thomas Gibbs Morgan and was admitted to the bar in 1832. He settled in Baton Rouge and built up an extensive law practice. Also in 1832, he was elected to the General Assembly as the representative from Baton Rouge and re-elected two years later, serving a total of four years. He served as prosecuting attorney for the Florida District and was elected Circuit Judge in 1860. He resigned this position in 1862 when New Orleans was taken by Union forces.
Avery held joint ownership of Petite Anse Island Plantation with George Marsh and Ashbel Burhnam Henshaw. In 1854, Avery bought out Henshaw and controlled a two-thirds interest.
Daniel Dudley Avery and Sarah Marsh had six children: Mary Eliza (b. 1838), Sarah Marsh (b. 1840), Dudley (b. 1842), John Marsh (1844-1891), George Marsh (b. 1846), and Margaret (b. 1848).
During the Civil War, Avery retired first to Petite Anse Island and then to Texas to avoid Union forces. His son, Dudley, enlisted in the Delta Rifles from Baton Rouge and fought under Albert Sidney Johnston in the Shiloh campaign. He was wounded and, after recuperating, joined the Confederate forces west of the Mississippi under the command of Lt. General Richard Taylor as a member of the 18th Louisiana Regiment. Avery’s son John deferred going into the army to attempt to produce salt for the Confederacy at Petite Anse. In 1862 he discovered the rock salt that lies under the island and heavily mined it for the Confederacy. John Marsh Avery later enlisted in the army.
After the war, both Dudley and John Marsh Avery became active in Louisiana politics. Dudley served as president of the Police Jury of Iberia Parish, state senator, and delegate to the Democratic National Convention. John served as state senator. Dudley married Mary Louise Richardson while John remained a bachelor.
Of the other children, Mary Eliza married Edmund Mcllhenny and Sarah Marsh married Paul B. Leeds; Margaret Henshaw also married, although the name of her husband is not known. George died as a baby.
N.B. Biographical information was adapted from a sketch written in 1951 by Joseph S. Clark, descendant of the Averys.
Baines, Henry Papers, Mss. 1209, 1796-1905 [West Feliciana Parish, Louisiana; also Kentucky and Tennessee] Location: Reel 1; Confederate Military Manuscripts, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge
Henry Baines was a planter of Baines, West Feliciana Parish, Louisiana, and a member of the London, England, Royal College of Surgeons. He married Emily McDermott and from this union produced George W. Baines, Edward Baines, and Antoinette D. Baines. Antoinette wed Isaac N. Maynard, manager of the New Orleans Clearing House Association.
This collection consists of papers of the Baines, McDermott, and Maynard families. Diverse topics are covered, including early landholdings in West Feliciana Parish, medical education in England, Confederate States Army service, and the cotton trade in New Orleans. Papers of Henry Baines’s father-in-law, Patrick McDermott, consist of Spanish land grants, land deeds, petitions for appointment of tutors for minor children, and other legal documents concerning McDermott’s estate. Papers of Isaac N. Maynard, Baines’s son-in-law, include family letters, 1838-1852, and an article, ca. 1884, on the Cotton Factors and Planters Exposition of New Orleans. Letters from Edward Baines describe Confederate military living conditions in the area of Columbus, Kentucky, in 1861 and comment on various military units and army maneuvers near Tullahoma, Tennessee, 1863.
Baldwin and Co. Records, 1879-1928, St. Mary Parish, Louisiana; Location: Reel 4; Records of Southern Plantations, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge
This collection consists of several volumes of ledgers and accounts books from Baldwin and Company, the name of the plantation store of Old Johnson plantation in Baldwin, Louisiana. The first two volumes consist of records of purchases made at the store, many by agricultural laborers. There also records of purchases made at the store, many agricultural laborers. There are also records of sugar and molasses sales. Sugar production and sales are also recapitulated in Volume 4 and Volume 5. The last two volumes in the collection provide more opportunity to study sugar laborers. There are entries for wages paid to laborers and overseers and entries for cash advances.
Ballinger, William Pitt Papers, 1816-1899 [Galveston, Houston, and Waco, Texas; also Louisiana, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia] Location: Reel 1-10, Confederate Military Manuscripts, University of Texas at Austin
This collection consists of correspondence, diaries, literary productions, business papers, legal papers, pamphlets, broadsides, newspaper clippings, maps, and a photograph. Items include papers produced and collected by Ballinger (1825-1888), soldier, Attorney, and businessman of Galveston. He began his law career at the close of the Mexican War (1846-1848), during which he served as adjutant under Albert Sidney Johnston. Ballinger served as U.S. district attorney for the Texas District and later opened his private law practice. Many of these papers relate to the financial and legal affairs of antebellum plantations in southeast Texas and Galveston businesses. A large number of papers document Ballinger’s service as Confederate States receiver for Galveston during the Civil War. His voluminous correspondence with Texan and Southern officials and with officers and men in Confederate service and his role in the negotiation of the surrender of Texas at the close of the war are also reflected here. His personal diary (1854-1886), which is accompanied by a typed transcript and an index, contains much information. Correspondents include Jefferson Davis, Josiah Gorgas, P. O. Hebert, Albert Sidney Johnston, John B. Magruder, and Edmund Kirby Smith.
A list of omissions from the William Pitt Ballinger Papers, 1816-, is provided on Reel 1, Frame 0023. Omissions include Papers, 1816-1858 and 1866-1899, and Diaries, 1854-1858 and 1868-1886.
Barber, M. W. and Durning, C. S. Diary, 1864 [Arkansas and Louisiana] Location: Reel 10: Confederate Military Manuscripts, University of Texas at Austin
Daily account of camp life and troop movements kept by Union Corporal Barber (1843-1864) from January 1, 1864, through April 7, 1864. After Barber’s death at Sabine Cross Roads, Louisiana, the account is resumed by Confederate Private Durning, who kept it from April 9, 1864, through December 31, 1864.
Barnes, William Henry Papers, 1847-1933 [Kaufman County, Texas] Location: Reel 23; Confederate Military Manuscripts, University of Texas at Austin
This collection contains Civil War correspondence by Barnes and includes material relating to camp life and hospital conditions. Barnes served in Colonel Lane’s Regiment, Texas Volunteers, Confederate Army. The collection also includes postwar correspondence, a diary from 1860, genealogical material, legal documents, deeds, election notices, and Confederate conscription legislation.
Barrow, Robert Ruffin Papers, 1857-1858. Terrebonne parish, Louisiana Location: Reel 2, Ante-Bellum Southern Plantations
Robert Ruffin (R.R.) Barrow was a sugar planter and canal operator in Terrebonne Parish, Louisiana. He owned six Terrebonne Parish plantations, including Residence, Myrtle Grove, and Caillou Grove, as well as plantations in Lafourche, Assumption, and Ascension Parishes, and in Texas.
This collection consists of a plantation journal kept by Residence Plantation manager Ephraim A. Knowlton and several overseers, including Robert P. Ford, George Bucknall, N.B. Holland, and Charles Lull. The journal contains slave records, details of sugar production, records of daily operations, and reports of conflicts between slaves and overseers and between Barrow and his overseers as well as reports of fugitive slaves. Slave records include slave lists, birth and death records, and mention of illnesses, tasks assigned, and items distributed to them.
This collection is most useful for studying the complex relationships between plantation owners and their overseers and the relationships between overseers, field slaves, and slave drivers. The journal also serves as an excellent source of information on slaves, containing extensive slave lists, accounts of resistance and punishments, and details of tasks assigned slaves. It provides only limited information on R.R. Barrow’s family life, though a few references to his children and friends do appear.
Biographical Note.
Robert Ruffin Barrow (b. 1798) was a sugar planter and canal operator in Terrebonne Parish, Louisiana. He was the oldest son of Bartholomew Barrow (d. 1852), a merchant at Fishing Creek, Halifax County, North Carolina, and Ascension Slatter Barrow. Bartholomew Barrow moved his family to West Feliciana Parish in 1820, where he settled on his estate, Afton Villa. Robert Barrow had two brothers, David Bennett and William Bennett Barrow, both of whom became planters. William lived with Robert until his death in 1842.
Robert Barrow (usually referred to as R. R. rather than Robert) owned six Terrebonne Parish plantations: Residence, Caillou Grove, Honduras, Myrtle Grove, Crescent Farm, and Point Farm. In addition, he owned Oak Grove Plantation in Lafourche Parish, Locust Grove Plantation in Assumption Parish; Donaldsonville Plantation in Ascension Parish; and several plantations in Texas. Barrow also operated the Barataria and Lafourche Canal Company Number.2.
In 1850 Barrow married Volumnia Washington Hunley, and they had two children, Volumnia Roberta (b. 1854) and Robert Ruffin, Jr. (b. 1858).
Barry, James Buckner Papers, 1847-1917 [Bosque County, Camp Cooper, Fort Belknap, and Walnut Springs, Texas] Location: Reel 24; Confederate Military Manuscripts, University of Texas at Austin
This collection contains the papers of Barry (1821-1906), Indian fighter, sheriff, soldier, Texas Ranger, legislator, and People’s Party candidate for state treasurer (1898). The papers are especially useful for documenting Barry’s military and law enforcement activities in defense of the frontier against Indian attack. During the Civil War, he organized a company to take the frontier posts from Federal garrison, and after being promoted to lieutenant colonel, he commanded Fort Belknap and Camp Cooper in north-central Texas. Papers include correspondence muster rolls, battalion reports, general orders, special orders, account papers, diary reminiscences, and autograph books. Correspondents include John P. Baylor; Albert S. Burleson; Texas Governors Sam Houston and Francis R. Lubbock; and Confederate Generals Henry E. McCulloch, John B. Magruder, and Edmund Kirby Smith.
Batchelor, Albert A. Papers, Mss. 919, 1852-1930 [Pointe Coupee Parish, Louisiana; also Kentucky, Pennsylvania, and Virginia] Location: Reel 1; Confederate Military Manuscripts, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge
Albert Agrippa Batchelor (1845-1905) was a planter of Red River Landing, Pointe Coupee Parish, Louisiana. Batchelor also managed several other plantations and served a term in the Louisiana State Legislature, 1888-1892. Albert A. Batchelor and two of his brothers served in the Confederate Army.
This collection consists of the papers, 1852-1930 (bulk 1870-1900), of Albert A. Batchelor. The collection includes personal and business papers, correspondence, diaries, and account books pertaining principally to local events and the operation and management of several plantations in Pointe Coupee Parish, including Bella Vista Plantation, Lakeside Plantation, Phoenix Plantation, Highland Plantation, and Normandy Plantation. Early letters among Batchelor family members describe conditions at Kentucky Military Institute and the Silliman Female Collegiate Institute and mention events such as African American slave insurrections in Natchez, Mississippi, 1863-1864, and military operations. Several letters describe Civil War battles including the 1862 Battle of Kernstown, Virginia, and the 1863 battles of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, and Chancellorsville, Virginia. Letters of several soldiers document service in the 2nd Louisiana Infantry Regiment.
Bayside Plantation Records, 1846-1866, Iberia and St. Landry Parishes, Louisiana, Location: Reel 6; Records of Ante-Bellum Southern Plantations from the Revolution through the Civil War.
Description of the Collection: This collection consists of a two-volume plantation journal of Francis Dubose Richardson and others, apparently including overseers, about Bayside Plantation, Iberia Parish, Louisiana, 1846-1852 and 1860-1862, and a plantation on Bayou Mallet, near Opelousas, St. Landry Parish, Louisiana, 1863-1866. Entries, made on a daily basis, consist of brief comments on sugar growing, plantation life, the condition of slaves and other plantation workers, brickmaking, fuelwood cutting, foodstuffs, and livestock. There are references to the division of labor between men and women and to social life and customs in the area. Entries in December 1862 relate to moving from Bayside Plantation to Bayou Mallett, and there are references to contracts with freedmen in 1865 and 1866. There are also short personal financial and supply accounts and other brief notes appended to each journal.
Biographical Note. Francis DuBose Richardson was born in Wilkinson County, Mississippi, in 1812, but came to Louisiana with his father, John Gaulden Richardson (1785-1856), and family in the 1820s. Francis DuBose Richardson became a planter and state legislator, married Bethia F. Liddell (d.1852), and in January 1846, moved with his family, hired hands, and slaves to set up Bayside Plantation on Bayou Teche, Iberia Parish, Louisiana. The Richardsons were given assistance at Bayside by other Richardson and Liddell family members, most of whom are referred to in the plantation journals by initials only: included are John Gaulden Richardson and Bethia’s father, Judge Moses Liddell.
After Bethia F. (Liddell) Richardson died in 1852, Francis DuBose Richardson sent their youngest daughter, Margaret to live with relatives. Their other children, Frank Liddell Richardson (fl. 1850s-1869) and Bethia C. Richardson (fl. 1840s-1870s), remained at Bayside, where they received a tutorial education until the Civil War. In October 1861, Frank left to join the Confederate army, and Bethia C. left to attend the Franklin Seminary in Franklin, Louisiana. The date of Francis DuBose Richardson’s death is unclear, though some sources indicate that he died in 1858.
Bayside Plantation continued to operate until mid-December 1862, when everyone was moved to a plantation “in the woods on Bayou Mallet,” in St. Landry Parish, Louisiana, in response to the arrival in the area of the Union army. The Richardson children visited both the Bayou Mallet and Bayside plantations at various times during the war, as did friends and relatives. Both Confederate and Union forces operated in the area, and in 1863, most of the plantation slaves sought refuge for a time in New Iberia. When the war ended, attempts were made to contract with freedmen and other labor to work on the plantations, with varying success.
Beall, William N.R. Telegram, Confederate States Army Collection, Mss. 3178, 1862 [Baton Rouge, Louisiana] Location: Reel 3; Confederate Military Manuscripts, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge
Gen. William Nelson Rector Beall (1825-1883) was a West Point graduate. He commanded the military camp at Port Hudson, Louisiana, when it surrendered to Union forces on 8 July 1863.
This collection consists of one item, a telegram, 9 September 1862, from Gen. William N. R. Beall to Gen. Ruggles. The telegram relates that the Union ironclad Essex passed Baton Rouge, Louisiana, on the previous day, and Beall requests permission to send one of his artillery batteries to Baton Rouge to replace a damaged battery.
Beatty, Taylor Papers, 1780-1849, Lafourche Parish, Louisiana; also Virginia and Kentucky, Location: Reel 1; Southern Women and Their Families in the 19th Century, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
Description of the Collection
Taylor Beatty of Thibodaux, Louisiana, was a Confederate military judge, sugar planter, lawyer, and judge. He was the son of Charlotte Beatty (1810-1847) and the grandson of Walker Reid (b. 1783).
Items in the collection include a volume that belonged to Walker Reid, containing Kentucky land entries, genealogical information on the Belt, Berkly, Blincoe, Botts, Gaines, Newman, Reid, Ward, and Wigginton families, and spiritual reflections. Also included is a diary of Charlotte Beatty for 1843 documenting daily activities involving her house and garden and visits with her friends.
Also included in the original collection, but not here, are eighteenth-century land grants. Omitted materials are chiefly diaries of Taylor Beatty documenting his activities during the Civil War as friend of General Braxton Bragg, judge of the military court of Lt. Gen. Hardee’s Corps and participant in the battles of Santa Rosa Island, Florida, October 1861; Shiloh, April 1862; Murfreesboro, Tennessee, December 1862; Chickamauga, Georgia, September 1863; Resaca, Georgia, May 1864; and Franklin, Tennessee,
November 1864. Also documented are in years 1883-1917 when he was a sugar planter in Louisiana and owned the plantations Dixie and Vivian, and a lawyer who attended court in Louisiana at Houma, Napoleonville, Thibodaux, and New Orleans.
The collection is arranged as follows; Series 1, Land Grants and other Loose Papers [not included]; Series 2, Walker Reid Volume; Series 3, Diary of Charlotte Beatty; Series 4. Diaries of Taylor Beatty [not included]; and Series 5, Typed Transcriptions of Series 2, 3, and 4 [included in part with Series 2 and 3].
Biographical Note
The chief figure in these papers is Taylor Beatty (1837-ca. 1917), son of Charlotte Beatty (1810-1847). He was a Confederate veteran, lawyer, and judge, and spent most of his life in Thibodaux, Lafourche Parish, Louisiana. He married Fannie Pugh (fl. 1883-1917), and had four children: Kate (fl. 1880s), Charlton (b. 1869), Charlotte (b. 1883), and Taylor (fl. 1891-1917). He owned Dixie and Vivian plantations.
Charlotte Beatty also lived in Thibodaux. She was the daughter of Walker Reid (b. 1783), who moved to Kentucky in 1804 and settled in the town of Washington in Mason County. It appears that he moved to Kentucky from Virginia.
Beauregard, P.G.T. Cartoon, Mss. 3111, Undated [Louisiana] Location: Reel 14; Confederate Military Manuscripts, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge
This collection consists of one item, a hand-colored cartoon, undated, by Nathaniel Orr showing Gen. P.G.T. Beauregard on his back in a rough stream of water blowing a bugle. The caption reads “Beauregard in his last Ditch.”
Beauregard, P.G.T. Letters, Mss. 2128-1858-1886 [Louisiana and South Carolina] Location: Reel 2; Confederate Military Manuscripts, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge
Pierre Gustave Toutant Beauregard (1818-1893) was a Confederate States Army general of New Orleans, Louisiana. Edward Clifton Wharton was a journalist and Confederate army major, also of New Orleans.
This collection consists of ten items, correspondence, 1858-1886, of P.G.T. Beauregard. Letters from Beauregard to Edward Clifton Wharton discuss personal matters and the authorship and publication of Beauregard’s reminiscences on the Civil War. A letter, 1862, from R.M. Smith, provost marshal of the Confederate army, concerns Beauregard’s order to burn bales of cotton belonging to Andrew Turnbull, a British subject. A letter, 1884, from John Johnson, a Confederate army major, recalls the condition of Fort Sumter, South Carolina, after sixty days of bombardment in the fall of 1864.
Becton, Edwin Pinckney Papers, 1862-1870 [Hopkins County, Texas] Location: Reel 25; Confederate Military Manuscripts, University of Texas at Austin
These papers consist of transcripts and two original letters from the Civil War correspondence of Becton (1834-1901), physician at Tarrant and Sulphur Springs, with his wife, Mary. Transcripts of Becton’s speeches concern his activities as surgeon in the 22nd Regiment, Texas Infantry, during the Civil War; as a member of the Texas Legislature from Hopkins County (1868-1869); and as a candidate for election.
Bell, James T. Letter, Mss. 3453, 1864 [Alabama and Ohio] Location: Reel 2; Confederate Military Manuscripts, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge
James T. Bell, a first lieutenant, served under Capt. John B. Hazard in the 21st Alabama Infantry Regiment. Bell assumed charge of this regiment after the death of Hazard at Johnson’s Island Prison, Ohio, in February 1864. Johnson’s Island Prison was in the Sandusky Bay area of Lake Erie. About three thousand Confederate officers were held there at the close of the Civil War.
This collection consists of one item, a letter, 28 February 1864, of James T. Bell, Johnson’s Island Prison, Ohio. The letter is written to Capt. John B. Hazard’s sister, Mrs. Mary Whitaker, in Alabama, and refers to “Ben,” Benjamin Andrews Whitaker, Mary Whitaker’s husband. It details Hazard’s illness, last wishes, and death at Johnson’s Island Prison. Described are the physical conditions at the prison, the weather, the medical facilities, the Confederate medical staff, and the illnesses rampant among the prisoners of war. Mentioned in the letter are the Confederate surgeons Col. Steadman of the 1st Alabama Regiment, Capt. Sessions of the 18th Mississippi Regiment, Capt. Locke of the 53rd Alabama Cavalry, and Col. Christian of a Virginia regiment. Mr. Helm, chaplain of the 1st Tennessee Regiment, and Capt. George S. Markham from Demopolis, Alabama, and of the 58th Alabama Regiment, were present at Hazard’s death.
Bell, John W. Papers, Mss. 771, 1862-1864 [Clarke County, Alabama; also Tennessee] Location: Reel 2; Confederate Military Manuscript, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge
John W. Bell, a captain in Company H, 32nd Alabama Infantry Regiment, served in Alabama and Tennessee during the Civil War. He was married to Nancy Bell of Coffeeville, Clarke County, Alabama.
This collection consists of three items and one volume, papers, 1862-1864, of Capt. John W. Bell. Items include letters written to Nancy Bell from Camp Forney, Alabama, and Lavergne, Tennessee. Correspondence discusses complaints of soldiers who had not been paid and lists names of officers to whom John W. Bell had loaned money. Letters also describe economic conditions on local farms, women who brought their children to the camps in order to secure food for them, and women who worked as paid laundresses for the soldiers. A notebook lists personal items and expenses of John W. Bell.
Bennet, Miles S. Papers, 1838-1927 [Texas] Location: Reel 25; Confederate Military Manuscripts, University of Texas at Austin
These papers consist of a diary and memorandum book containing information about the Presbyterian General Assembly in 1852 as well as Civil War muster rolls and various financial, military, agricultural, and medical information. Transcriptions of letters and historical narratives primarily dealing with the Battle of the Salado (1842) are also included.
Birge, N.A. Papers, Mss. 918, 1036, 1861-1865 [Monroe and Shreveport, Louisiana; also Jefferson, Texas] Location: Reel 2; Confederate Military Manuscripts, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge
N. A. Birge was a captain and assistant quartermaster in the Confederate States Army. He served at the Monroe Army Post in Louisiana; Shreveport, Louisiana; and Jefferson, Texas.
This collection consists of eighty-eight items, papers, 1861-1865 (bulk 1862-1864), of N. A. Birge. Papers consist of copies of official forms, routine correspondence from army personnel, and a few letters from soldiers. Requisitions, vouchers, and receipts for clothing, camp equipment, transportation, and medical supplies approved by Confederate States Army personnel and referred to Birge for payment during 1862-1864 are included. The impressment of cotton in Texas is discussed in two letters from Col. W.A. Broadwell, Office of the Cotton Bureau, Headquarters, Trans-Mississippi Department.
Black, William W. Family Papers, 1845-1911 [Panola County, Texas; also Louisiana] Location: Reel 25; Confederate Military Manuscripts, University of Texas at Austin
Papers in this collection relate to Black (1820-1862), a physician in Panola County, as well as to the Robb family of New Orleans, and they reflect the social, political, cultural, and financial activities of various family members and friends. Correspondence and financial records primarily concern Black’s medical career and his service in the Confederate Army as a captain in the 14th Texas Cavalry Regiment (Dismounted). Black died during the Army of Tennessee’s campaign of 1862-1863.
Blanchard, D.A. Receipts, Mss. 2142, 1863 [Richmond, Virginia] Location: Reel 3; Confederate Military Manuscript, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge
This collection consists of three items, receipts, 1863, of Capt. G. Barksdale, assistant quartermaster at Richmond, Virginia.
Bledsoe, Joseph Papers, 1854-1865 [Austin and Brownsville, Texas] Location: Reel 25; Confederate Military Manuscripts, University of Texas at Austin
This collection contains the correspondence of Bledsoe (1827-1880), who came to Texas in the early 1850s as a surveyor, practiced law in Austin (1854-1858) and Denton (1858-1860), and was wounded as a Confederate soldier. In later life he served as judge of the Twenty-seventh District and practiced law in Sherman. The letters concern Brownsville during the Civil War and Austin before and after it
Boudreaux, Maximilien E. Family Papers, 1856-1927 Assumption Parish, Louisiana; Location: Reel 15; Records of Southern Plantations, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge
This collection consists of the papers of Maximilien e. Boudreaux of Assumption Parish. The records primarily relate to Boudreaux’s financial and business affairs and to the production of sugar and molasses. There are records of advances made to tenant farmers and to laborers. Time books record hours of work and wages earned by laborers on Boudreaux’s lands.
Boyd, John Diary, 1850-1871, Pointe Coupée Parish, Louisiana, Location: Reel 14, Records of Ante-Bellum Southern Plantations from the Revolution through the Civil War.
Description of the Collection, John Boyd was born in County Antrim, Northern Ireland, on February 18, 1783, and died on July 30, 1858 at his plantation, “Oak Grove.” He owned a plantation on Bayou Lettsworth in Pointe Coupée Parish, Louisiana, which may or may not have been this “Oak Grove.” He may also have owned property near Donaldsonville, Louisiana. One of his daughters, Margaret Bruce, married Colonel Henry T. Williams of Montgomery County, Maryland, and the Williams’s daughter, Clara D., married Lieutenant Edward D. Seghers of the Confederate army.
This collection consists of Boyd’s diary. The diary provides only brief, irregular entries, January 1, to June 25, 1850. Expense accounts and planting records were entered in the book in 1859 and 1866, and additional expense accounts were apparently added in 1870 and 1871. The diary begins with a description of a trip Boyd took to New Orleans. Boyd also noted in January that he traveled up the Mississippi River to his plantation in Pointe Coupée Parish and briefly described the condition of his slaves and land. Other entries concern the weather, visits to and from his neighbors, various trips he made by boat, and, in May, descriptions of the water level in a river, possibly the Mississippi, which rose and fell after a series of storms. A typed transcription of entries made in 1850, 1859, and 1866 is available.
Biographical Note
Related collections among the holdings of the Southern Historical Collection include the Edward D. Seghers Papers and the Henry L. Duffel Papers. These collections are open to researchers on site at the Southern Historical Collection.
Bradbury, Charles W. Papers, 1817-1854, New Orleans, Louisiana; also Indiana, New York, and Ohio; Location: Reel 1 & 2; Southern Woman & Their Families, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
The Bradbury family were residents of Manlius and Canandaigua, New York; Cincinnati and Montgomery, Ohio; Madison, Indiana; and New Orleans, Louisiana. Family members included Jacob Bradbury (fl. 1817-1825); Cornelius S. Bradbury (fl. 1817-1848); Elizabeth A. Bradbury (fl. 1817-1825); and Charles William Bradbury (fl. 1832-1856). Madaline Selima Edwards (fl. 1843-1848), C. W. Bradbury’s New Orleans mistress, is also significant in this collection.
Chiefly consists of letters to Cornelius S. Bradbury, 1818-1825; correspondence, financial and legal papers, and memorandum books of Charles W. Bradbury, 1832-1852; and notebooks, containing essays, poems, and other writings, and diaries of Madaline S. Edwards, 1843-1847. Legal papers include items relating to purchases of slaves, real estate, and a cottonseed manufacturing plant in or near New Orleans. Letters include descriptions of social life and customs in the various places of residence of the Bradbury family, descriptions of traveling through southern Indiana and down the Ohio Mississippi Rivers from Cincinnati to New Orleans, and reflections on their relationship by Charles Bradbury and Madaline Edwards. Also included are three daguerreotypes, a photograph, and an ink sketch.
The collection is arranged as follows: Series 1, Correspondence and Other Loose Papers; Series 2, Writing Books, Diaries, and Memorandum Books; and Series 3, Pictures.
Biographical Note
Jacob Bradbury (fl. 1817-1834), apparently a doctor and farmer, was married to Mary Bradbury (fl. 1817-1842); their children included Elizabeth A. Bradbury (fl. 1817-1835); Cornelius S. Bradbury (fl. 1818-1848); Charles William Bradbury (fl. 1835-1856); Mrs. C. I. (Bradbury) Doan (fl. 1835-1842); James Anson Bradbury (fl. 1835-1848); and Marcus T. I. Bradbury (fl. 1834-1848).
Cornelius S. Bradbury moved from Canandaigua, New York, to Cincinnati in about 1820. He married Sarah (surname unknown) Bradbury (fl. 1821-1844) in about 1822. Jacob Bradbury moved from Manlius, New York, to Montgomery, Ohio, in late 1821; the rest of his family followed in 1822. By 1834 many of the family had removed to Madison, Indiana.
Charles William (“Charley”) Bradbury moved to New Orleans in 1835. He married Mary Anne (Hamilton) Taylor (fl. 1836-1852) in 1836. The New Orleans directory shows that Charles William Bradbury resided on Estelle Street between Constance and Magazine in 1838; in 1852, he was an insurance broker with an office at the corner of Erato and Bacchus (Baronne) streets; in 1853 he was at No. 75 St. Charles Street; the 1856 directory lists him as a “Cottonseed and Lard Oil Manufacturer,” with an office on Circus Street, corner of Girod.
Madaline Selima (“Mad”) Edwards (fl. 1843-1848), originally from Tennessee and later Mississippi, was living in New Orleans when she met Charles W. Bradbury. She apparently became his mistress, and he purchased a house for her use in October 1843. References in the papers indicate that Mrs. Edwards was raised by and uncle in Tennessee and was married at his house, and that three of her children died in Clinton, Mississippi. Another connection to Charles W. Bradbury was Helen (“Ellen”) Hart, apparently of Cincinnati, Ohio.
Brashear and Lawrence Family Papers, 1804-1982, St. Mary Parish, Louisiana; also Kentucky and New York, Location: Reel 7, 8, 9 & 10 Records of Ante-Bellum Southern Plantations from the Revolution through the Civil War.
Description of the Collection: Walter Brashear (1776-1860) was a physician in Kentucky before 1822 when he moved to St. Mary Parish, Louisiana, where he become a sugar planter and state legislator after acquiring Belle Island Plantation and other landholdings in the area. The family of Effingham Lawrence (d.1850) and Ann Townsend Lawrence (fl. 1802-1830s) lived in Bayside, New York, until sons Robert (fl. 1820’s-1850s), Samuel Townsend (d. 1839), Henry Effingham (1809-1876?), and Effingham, Jr. (1820?-1878) moved to New Orleans to take up merchandizing and sugar planting. Henry Effingham Lawrence married Frances Emily Brashear, daughter of Walter and Margaret Barr Brashear, in 1844.
This collection contains correspondence among members of the Brashear, Lawrence, and related Barr, Parker, Clay, Tilton, and Townsend families. Subjects include observations while traveling in Ohio, Pennsylvania (especially Pittsburgh), and Mississippi in the 1820s and1830s; physician Walter Brashear’s life in Lexington, Kentucky, in the 1820s and 1830s; sugar growing, slavery, and medical care in St. Mary Parish, Louisiana; Louisiana politics, especially in the 1840s; and various aspects of the Confederacy. Letters from the Lawrence brothers in New Orleans to their relatives in New York in the 1820s offer observations by Northerners on life in the south. Civil War correspondence and the diary of Henry Effingham Lawrence refer in some detail to military operations and the effects of the war in St. Mary Parish and, more generally, to events throughout the country. Correspondence with the Lawrence children at the Louisiana Institute for the deaf and the Dumb and the Blind at Baton Rouge, the Whipple School at Mystic River, Connecticut, Miss Bolton’s School at Middletown, Connecticut, and the Hellmuth Ladies School at London, Ontario, Canada, concerns school, social life, and family matters in the 1860s and 1870s. There are also scattered financial and legal materials; miscellaneous writings, and other materials.
Biographical Note
Walter Brashear (1776-1860), was a surgeon, sugar-planter, an exporter of ginseng to China, and, beginning in 1834, member of the Louisiana legislature. Though born in Maryland, he was raised and lived in Bardstown, Nelson County, Kentucky, until 1822, when he moved to St. Mary Parish (Attakapas region), Louisiana. He acquired extensive landholdings in the area, including Belle Island Plantation, and what was known in the 1860s as the Town of Brashear or Brashear City, now Morgan City. A sketch of Walter Brashear appears in the Filson Club Quarterly, XXVll, pp. 156-157.
Margaret Barr (1781-1834) of Kentucky married Walter Brashear in 1803. The Brashears had at least six children: Mary Eliza, Rebecca Tilton, Carolina Imly, Walter B., Thomas Todd (d.1858), and Frances Emily (1819-1895) who married Henry Effingham Lawrence (1809-1876?) in 1844.
Henry E. Lawrence was the son of Ann Townsend (fl. 1802-1830s) and Judge Effingham Lawrence (fl. 1802-d. 1850) of Bayside, Long Island, New York. (Among his siblings were Samuel Townsend [fl. 1820s-1839], Robert [fl. 1820-1850s], and Effingham, Jr. [1820?-1878].) He moved from Long Island to New Orleans about 1836, became a merchant, acquired Magnolia Plantation, Plaquemines Parish, Louisiana, and, after marrying Frances E. Brashear, became associated with the Brashear landholdings in St. Mary Parish.
Henry and Frances Lawrence had seven children, six of whom were Walter B., Townsend B. (“Towny”), Robert B. (“Bob”), Nancy B., Lydia B., and Margaret (“Maggie”). Five of these children were deaf-mutes. Frances Brashear moved to Long Island, New York, during the Civil War and lived on the Brashear plantations with various of her children in her later years.
Brumby and Simpson Family Papers, 1847-1865, St. Mary Parish, Louisiana; also Mississippi: Location: Reel 7; Records of Ante-Bellum Southern Plantations from the Revolution through the Civil War
Description of the Collection, Sarah Catherine Brumby Simpson (1840-1915), daughter of John Greening Brumby and Catherine Sarah Remley Brumby of Benton and Goodman, Mississippi, is the central figure in these papers. Sarah had at least five brothers and three sisters. In 1858, she married Richard Simpson (d. 1871) of Covington, Louisiana. A businessman, Simpson traveled frequently throughout Louisiana and Texas. Together they had four children.
Although Sarah Brumby Simpson was the recipient of the vast majority of the letters in the collection, the insight they provide into her life is limited. Most illuminating on her personal affairs are letters she received from her husband, discussing their children and finances. The lives of her other siblings emerge more fully in the letters. They shared with her news of their travels, family events, and activities, and freely discussed their feelings and worries about family, political, and social events.
A handful of letters are addressed to other family members, including Sarah’s brother-in-law, Augustus Vaughan. Civil War letters provide information on troop conditions and civilian hardships, especially in Tennessee and Mississippi. Other topics of interest in the letters are courtship; Arnoldus Brumby’s medical practice; postwar economic conditions; religious fervor among women in Marietta, Georgia, during the Civil War; and family life.
The papers are useful for the study of a variety of topics, including family life in the ante-bellum and postwar South, the experiences of civilians and soldiers in the Civil War, and social and religious life in Louisiana and Mississippi. The Civil War letters are the fullest in terms of their emotional and factual depth.
Biographical Note
Sarah Catherine Brumby Simpson (1840-1915) was the daughter of John Greening Brumby and Catherine Sarah Remley Brumby of Benton and Goodman, Mississippi. Sara Catherine was referred to sometimes as Sarah, sometimes as Sallie, and sometimes as Kate. She had at least five brother, Arnoldus S. (1832-1892), Robert E. (1834-1864), John (1838-1863?), James R. (b. 1846), and Thomas Micajah (b. 1852), and three sisters, Virginia Carolina (1836-1915), Mary E., called Mollie (1844-1907), and Emily (1848).
In 1858 Sarah Brumby married Richard Simpson (d. 1871) of Covington, Louisiana, and moved there with him. Simpson traveled frequently throughout Louisiana and Texas as a business agent for several clients. The Simpsons had four children, Mary Ellis, Pearl, Eloise, and Richard. A letter of June 4, 1871, mentions that after Simpson’s death in 1871 Sarah considered opening a millinery shop with one of her sisters, but no evidence appears to document whether she ever went through with her plans. Letters addressed to her show that Sarah lived in Knoxville Tennessee, in 1906, and in St. Petersburg, Florida, from 1907 until her death in 1915.
Two of Sarah’s brothers, Robert E. and John Greening Brumby, Jr., lost their lives in the Civil War. Her brothers, Arnoldus, studied medicine and became a physician in Holmes County, Mississippi. Another brother, James R., after serving in the Confederate army, became a cooper in Marietta, Georgia. In the 1870s he set up a chair manufacturing firm there, being joined by his brother Thomas Micajah Brumby. Thomas later left their partnership to set up a competing company. Sarah’s sister, Mary E. (called Mollie), married Augustus Vaughn and lived in Goodman, Mississippi, and later Little Rock, Arkansas. Her sister, Virginia Carolina, married a Mr. Wellons and lived in Marietta, Georgia. Emily lived in Fort Gaines, Florida.
Only sketchy information is available on Sarah’s children. Her daughter, Mary Ellis (called Nellie), married James C. Talley, and her daughter, Eloise, married T. A. Gramling. Another daughter, Pearl, remained unmarried. No evidence appears about whether or who her son Richard (also called Dick and Bud) married.
Brusle, Charles A. Papers, Mss. 558, 1605, 1627, 1854-1905 [Plaquemine, Iberville Parish, Louisiana] Location : Reel 3; Confederate Military Manuscript, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge
Charles A. Brusle, a sugar planter of Plaquemine, Iberville Parish, Louisiana was a Confederate States Army officer, Company A, 3rd Louisiana Infantry; member, 1857-1861, of the state House of Representatives; state senator; Iberville Parish tax collector; and sheriff.
This collection consists of thirty-two items, including three volumes, papers, 1854-1905, of Charles A. Brusle. Items include personal papers, a diary, a record book, and newspaper clippings from a scrapbook. Antebellum papers, 1854-1860, include recommendations for Brusle’s matriculation at the University of Virginia and a letter from Pierre Soule introducing Rep. Sidney Lewis. Civil War papers concern Brusle’s commission as a captain, his appointment as aide-de-camp to Brig. Gen. Louis Hebert, and his capture and parole as a prisoner of was Postwar materials include a broadside issued during Brusle’s campaign for state senator; letters from Louisiana Governor Samuel D. McEnery; a petition requesting Brusle to run for the office of mayor of Plaquemine; and a letter from the National Reconstruction Party addressing early Reconstruction problems in rural parishes and registration of whites in New Orleans. The record book consists of accounts with Rosa Brusle, 1864; expenses of Monticello Plantation, Louisiana, 1865; and Brusle’s personal observations of the Confederate government in early 1864.
Bryan, Arthur John Papers, 1841-1872 [Dallas and McLennan County, Texas; also Arkansas, Louisiana, and Missouri] Location: Reel 10; Confederate Military Manuscripts University of Texas at Austin
Bryan was a captain of the Texas Rangers in the Civil War and a member of the Third Texas Cavalry. His papers include a memorandum book, a Republican ticket list, survey field notes, receipts, legal papers, a muster roll, and other military papers.
Burges-Jefferson Family Papers, 1836-1960 [Texas; also Mississippi and Virginia] Location: Reel 25; Confederate Military Manuscripts University of Texas at Austin
This collection primarily contains family correspondence and business documents of the Jefferson and Burges families. Jefferson family materials include personal correspondence of John R. Jefferson Jr., brigadier general in the Mississippi militia (1842-1846), tavern owner, stage line operator in Seguin, Texas (1853-1858), and confederate marshal for the Western District of Texas (1862-1865); his wife, Eliza A. Coorpender Jefferson; and their daughter, Mattie S. Jefferson (died 1877). Most letters were written during the Civil War and concern camp life as well as family and community affairs. Also included are official documents relating to John Jefferson’s Confederate post as well as a copy of his amnesty from President Andrew Johnson; slave lists, a bill of sale for a slave, and an obituary of a former slave of Joseph Henry Polley, one of Stephen F. Austin’s colonists; a “Premium Ticket purchased at a Concert given by the Ladies of Seguin for the Benefit of the Hospitals at Richmond, Virginia, and Victoria, Texas for the Texas Soldiers, January 1st, 1862”; a broadside advertising a sale of damaged cotton, 1864; material relating to a flag made by Seguin women and presented to Hood’s Texas Brigade in 1861; and several letters from William C. Walsh (1836-1924), a lieutenant in the Tom Green Rifles and later a state land commissioner. Burges family materials include correspondence of William H. Burges (1838-1898), lawyer and state senator (1880-1881); his third wife, Mary Lou (Mamie) Jefferson Burges; and their children. One letter contains a firsthand account by W. H. Burges of the Battle of Fredericksburg, 1862.
Cable, James B. Papers, Mss. 1765, 1862-1913 [Lauderdale and Long Beach, Mississippi] Location: Reel 3 Confederate Military Manuscript, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge
This collection consists of sixty-one items and one printed volume, papers, 1862-1913; of James B. Cable. Papers consist of Letters, 1862-1913; Miscellaneous, Undated; Poems, 1897-1910; Stories, 1890-1901; and Printed Volume, 1880. Letters, 1865-1866, from Cable to his mother mention his work as an orderly at Oliver Hospital, Lauderdale, Mississippi, during the Civil War. Letters from Cable’s brother George indicate his indifference and aversion to seeing James.
A list of omission from James B. Cable Papers, Mss. 1765, 1862-1913, is provided on Reel 3, Frame 0512. Omitted items include Letters, 1885-1913; Miscellaneous, Undated; Poems, 1897-1910; Stories, 1890-1901; and Printed Volume, 1880.
Caffery Family Papers, 1838-1850, Iberia and St. Mary Parishes, Louisiana, Location: Reel 7 Records of Ante-Bellum Southern Plantations from the Revolution through the Civil War
This collection includes correspondence of the Caffery and Richardson families of Iberia Parish, Louisiana. Prominent family members include Bethia Liddell Richardson (d. 1852); her husband, Francis DuBose Richardson (b. 1812), sugar planter at Bayside Plantation on Bayou Teche and state legislator; their daughter, Bethia Richardson Caffery (fl. 1866-1907) and her husband, Donelson Caffery (1835-1906), son of Donelson Caffery (fl 1830s) and Lydia Murphy Caffery McKerall (fl. 1835-1881), lawyer in Franklin, Louisiana, sugar planter, Confederate soldier, state legislator, and U.S. senator. 1892-1901.
This collection chiefly consists of personal correspondence among Caffery and Richardson family members. Most of the Richardson family papers are dated 1838 to 1852 and cover topics such as sugar planting, purchases and settlement of land, and family activities. The bulk of the Caffery family papers fall between 1866 and 1906. Their letters are chiefly about family activities, but Donelson Caffery also wrote about politics in Louisiana and Washington, D.C. There are letters written to Donelson, while he was a senator, congratulating him on his stand on the gold standard, two letters from Grover Cleveland, and letters concerning Democratic party matters. Letters from later years deal chiefly with Donelson’s efforts in the face of financial difficulties, including work on his sugar plantations and attempts at establishing oil wells.
Biographical Note
Bethia Richardson Caffery was the daughter of Francis DuBose Richardson (b. 1812) and Bethia Liddell Richardson (d. 1852). The Richardsons lived first near New Iberia and later at Bayside Plantation on the Bayou Teche near Jeanerette in Iberia Parish, Louisiana. Francis was a sugar planter and also served in the Louisiana state legislature during the early 1850s.
Bethia Richardson married Donelson Caffery in 1869. Caffery was the son of Donelson Caffery (fl. 1830s) and Lydia Murphy Caffery (fl. 1835-1881). After the death of his father, his mother married Watson McKerall. Donelson Caffery attended school in Franklin, Louisiana, and St. Mary’s College in Baltimore, Maryland. He later studied law in the office of Joseph W. Walker and at Louisiana University in New Orleans. After completing school he apparently began sugar planting on Bayou Cypremont near the Gulf of Mexico. Bethia and Donelson Caffrey had ten children.
Caffery joined the Crescent Rifles in New Orleans in January 1862. He was transferred to the 13th Louisiana Regiment and fought in the battle of Shiloh. Later he was made lieutenant on the staff of Brigadier General W. W. Walker and remained in that position until the end of the war.
After the war Caffery began to practice law and continued in sugar planting. He became involved in Louisiana politics and in 1879 was elected to the Louisiana state constitutional convention. In 1892 he was elected to the state Senate and that same year was appointed to the U.S. Senate when Randall L. Gibson died. Two years later he was reelected and served until the expiration of his term in 1901. As a senator, Caffery opposed free silver and the war with Spain. He was active in the formation of the National or “Gold” Democratic party and was nominated as that party’s candidate for president in 1900; he declined in order to return home and resume the practice of law and cultivation of his sugar plantation. He died in 1906.
The exact location and number of plantations owned by Donelson Caffery is not known; however, it is believed he owned at least two, Haifleigh and Bethia Plantation, both of which were located in St. Mary’s Parish near Franklin, Louisiana.
N.B. Biographical information was taken from a sketch on Donelson Caffery by Eugene M. Violette in the Dictionary of American Biography, Vol. lll, pp. 402-403.
Cahan, Solomon Application, Confederate States Army Collection (M), Mss. 1063, 1863 [Alexandria and Vermilion Parish, Louisiana] Location: Reel 3 Confederate Military Manuscript, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge
Solomon Cahan, a French citizen and a merchant, was conscripted as a private into Company I of the Crescent Regiment, Louisiana Infantry (24th Louisiana Infantry Regiment), by Capt. H. B. Stevens, provost marshal of Vermilion Parish.
This collection consists of two items, an application and memorandum, 1863, concerning the discharge of French citizens from the Confederate States Army. The application, 6 August 1863, of Solomon Cahan requests a discharge from the Confederate States Army and states that he is a French citizen. The application is signed by Cahan’s superior officers. Included is a memorandum, 28 August 1863, from headquarters, District of Louisiana at Alexandria, stating that an application for discharge of a French subject (presumably Cahan) has been denied.
Cameron, Bluford Alexander Papers, 1862-1950 [Belton, Texas; also Arkansas and Louisiana] Location: Reel 10 & 25; Confederate Military Manuscripts University of Texas at Austin
This collection consists of a letter, a diary with transcription, family notes, artifacts, and photographs relating to the career of Bluford Alexander Cameron as a sergeant in the Confederate Army and to the history of the Whitsitt and Cameron families.
Carter, A.G. and Miller, John C. Letter, Mss. 4623, 1862 [East Baton Rouge, East and West Feliciana Parishes, Louisiana] Location: Reel 3 Confederate Military Manuscript, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge
A. G. Carter and John C. Miller were deputy provost marshals, Confederate States Army. Daniel Ruggles (1810-1897) was a native of Barre, Massachusetts. A graduate of the U.S. Military Academy, he saw action in the Seminole Wars and Mexican War. He married into a Virginia family and on 7 May 1861 resigned from the U.S. Army to enter Confederate service. He was commissioned a brigadier general on 9 August 1861 and served at Corinth, Mississippi, early in the war under Albert Sydney Johnston. He held several district and departmental commands during the course of the war and was appointed commissary general of prisoners, 30 March 1865.
This collection consists of one item, a letter, 13 July 1862, to Brig. Gen. Daniel Ruggles from A. G. Carter and John C. Miller, deputy provost marshals. The letter documents actions of Federal forces against the inhabitants of the Louisiana parishes of East Baton Rouge, East Feliciana, and West Feliciana. The letter contains requests for troops to defend the parishes and for the planting of batteries along the Red River.
Cavitt, Josephus Papers, 1860-1865 and 1868 [Robertson County and Wheelock, Texas] Location: Reel 10; Confederate Military Manuscripts University of Texas at Austin
These papers concern the career and family of cavitt (born 1826), stock raiser and militiaman in Robertson County, and relate to conscription under the Confederacy in Texas (1863); sequestration, condemnation, confiscation, and sale at public auction of lands taken as property of alien enemies of the Confederate States (1863-1864); the selling of slaves; Reconstruction; and Cavitt’s application for special amnesty. Included are correspondence, financial papers, military orders, muster rolls, a deed, a certificate, and a broadside.
Chalmers, James Ronald Letter, Mss. 2699, 1861 [sic, 1862] [Mississippi] Location: Reel 3 Confederate Military Manuscript, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge
James Ronald Chalmers (1831-1898) was a Confederate general and a postwar U.S. congressman from Mississippi. He was a district attorney and a member of the Mississippi Secession Convention. As colonel of the 9th Mississippi Infantry, he commanded at Pensacola, Florida. In February 1862, he was promoted to brigadier general and served with distinction throughout the war. Braxton Bragg (1817-1876) was a graduate of the U.S. Military Academy and veteran of the Mexican American War, who retired and became a Louisiana sugar plantation owner before joining the Confederate States Army. Bragg served as major general, Department of Alabama and West Florida, 14 October 1861—28 February 1862, and in a number of other commands during the war.
This collection consists of one item, a letter, 3 January1861 [sic, 1862], to Maj. Gen. Braxton Bragg from James Ronald Chalmers. The letter was written at Camp Bragg while Chalmers was a colonel in the 9th Mississippi Regiment. It acknowledges on behalf of the officers of that unit the receipt of a barrel of golden syrup from Mrs. Bragg.
Chambers, Rowland Diaries, Mss. 839, 1849-1863 [Vicksburg, Mississippi; also Louisiana] Reel 3 Confederate Military Manuscript, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge
Dr. Rowland Chambers (ca. 1803-1866) was an itinerant dentist from Vicksburg, Warren County, Mississippi. He practiced dentistry in North St. Louis, Missouri, in 1849; in Panama City, Panama, in 1850; and in Yazoo County, Mississippi, and Richmond, Madison Parish, Louisiana, from 1858 to 1860, before returning to Vicksburg.
This collection consists of seven volumes, diaries, 1849-1863, of Dr. Rowland Chambers. Six diaries, 1849-1863, describe places visited, names of patients (including names of their slaves), Chambers’s health and the health of his parents, his activities at home and local events, visitors received, and the weather. The diary for 1862-1863 describes his activities in Vicksburg, Mississippi, including the siege of Vicksburg, beginning with the events of 26 May 1862 and continuing through the summer until the withdrawal of Federal forces. Coverage of the siege continues in December 1862 with the resumption of the Federal campaign through June 1863. Chamber’s diaries contain financial accounts listing yearly income, types of dental work performed, and payments received for services. The collection also includes a diary of Augustus Lattz of Company H, 76th Regiment of Illinois Volunteers, which contains entries concerning the activities of this regiment, 10 January-25 July 1863.
Civil War Miscellany, 1855-1956 [Texas; also Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Virginia] Location: Reel 11; Confederate Military Manuscripts University of Texas at Austin
This collection consists of diverse items connected in some way with the Civil War. The material concerns both Union and Confederate soldiers and has many points of origin. Predominant in the collection is a Civil War biographical file containing personal letters to and from soldiers, as well as a few official letters and documents and a few papers not related to the war. Among the items included are financial records of the River and Railroad Transportation Office of the Quartermaster Department of the Union Army in Little Rock, Arkansas, including transport of troops, supplies, and refugees; the diary of a Union soldier of the Fifteenth Corps; stereoviews of the siege of Port Hudson, Louisiana, May 27 to July 9, 1863; conscription and exemption documents; and Special Field Order No. 65 (April 27, 1865) from William T. Sherman terminating the war for armies under Albert Sidney Johnston [Joseph E. Johnston] and for the country east of the Chattahoochie River. Included are correspondence, a diary, military orders, requisitions, commissions, election certificates, financial records, stereoviews, and poems.
Civil War, Official Battle lists of 1861-1865. 2 Rolls. 16mm. National Archives RG 94. M823. YSC Location: Microfilm Cabinet 3, Drawer 6
On the two rolls of this microfilm publication are reproduced nine Civil War battle lists, hereafter designated (a) thought (i), which were compiled in the War Department between the years 1867 and 1907. Lists (a) through (e) were created in the Adjutant General’s Office (AGO) for administrative and historical purposes; lists (g) and (h) were created in the Surgeon General’s Office as indexes to casualty records that were subsequently transferred to the Record and Pension Office of the AGO along with other medical records useful in acting on Pension requests from Civil War veterans. Lists (a) through (e), (g), and (h) are now part of Records of the Adjutant General’s Office, 1780’s-1917, Record Group 94. List (f) is excerpted from the Volunteer Army Register and lists (i) is accepted from The Medical and Surgical History of the War of the Rebellion.
The battle lists reproduced in this microfilm publication indicate which Union troops were engaged in particular Civil War Operations and often include additional data, such as casualties. All the battle lists in this microfilm publication are incomplete compilations and reflect the numerous inaccuracies found in the original and secondary sources from which they were compiled. Compiler’s misinterpretations of source data resulted in additional errors in the lists. Despite these shortcomings, the battle lists can serve as valuable tools in seeking out sources of data in Civil War related records.
Battle lists (a) through (d) were originally assigned letter symbols for ease of citation in the National Archives and Records Service (NARS) publication Military Operations of the Civil War: A Guide-Index to the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, 1861-1865 (5 vols., Washington, 1968). Battle lists (e) through (i) were not so designated in the Guide-Index, but they have been assigned letter symbols in sequence with the previous four lists for ease of citation in this microfilm publication.
Battle List (a)
Battle list (a) presumably was prepared in 1867 in connection with the publication that year of the last two volumes of the
1. Official Army Register of the Volunteer Force of the United States Army for the Years 1861, ’62, ’63, ’64, ’65 (8 vols., Washington: Adjutant General’s Office, 1865-1867).
2. The Medical and Surgical History of the War of the Rebellion, 1861-65 (2 parts of 3 vols. Each, Washington: Government Printing Office, 1870-88).
Volunteer Army Register for the Civil War. The battle list was prepared in two handwritten versions, one arranged chronologically and the other arranged alphabetically by geographic location. The two versions contain identical information derived from muster rolls, strength returns, and other kinds of original records. For each combat, battle list (a) shows which Volunteer troop units were involved. Occasional references are provided to Regular Army participation.
A number of penciled corrections in the chronological version apparently represent an early attempt to alter or eliminate entries thought to be erroneous, but an examination of these entries shows that some were in fact valid. As battle list (a) was later used by the compilers of the Official Records for designating some of the military operations that are mentioned in its headings, lists of events, and index entries, the inaccuracies in this battle list were carried over into that publication.
Battle List (b)
From the raw data used in compiling battle list (a), a second handwritten battle list was compiled a few years later, probably in 1871. The value of battle list (b) lies in its different arrangement and inclusion of useful data that do not appear in battle list (a). However, list (b) does not include U. S. Colored Troops, as does list (a). List (b) is arranged by State and there under by arm of service, numerical designations of troop units, and dates of combats. The additional data often included casualty figures and indications of which companies or particular regiments were engaged. As States are not arranged alphabetically, it is necessary to consult the State index that precedes this battle list in this microfilm publication.
Battle List( c)
Battle list (c) was produced in connection with the preparation of an earlier, chronologically arranged version (known as the “preliminary prints”) of the Official Records. The list is in printed form and titled Chronological List of Battles, Engagements, Etc., During the Rebellion, 1861-1865, with the Designation of Troops Engaged. Although the imprint date is 1875, printing apparently was completed around 1877 or 1878, and, in spite of its title, the list covers only the years
3. U. S. War Department, the War of the Rebellion: A compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies ed. Lt. Col. Robert N. Scott et al. (70 vols. in 127 serial parts, plus general index volume and atlas, Washington: Government Printing Office, 1880-1901).
Battle List (d)
Battle list (d) records engagements of Regular Army troops by arm of service and there under by regiment from the time each regiment was organized through 1902. Participating companies are generally indicated for each engagement. Circumstantial evidence establishes that this typewritten list was prepared by Francis B. Heitman of the Adjutant General’s Office during the period 1891-1907. While it partly supplies the data for Regular Army troops not included in battle list (b), it does not provide casualty figures, and for this information it is necessary to consult battle list (e). Only parts of battle list (d) listing regiments for which Civil War action is shown have been filmed in this microfilm publication.
Battle List (e)
Battle List (e) is a typed excerpt from a draft that provided data for a Regular Army battle list published in volume 2 of Francis B. Heitman’s Historical Register and Dictionary of the United States Army from its Organization, September 29, 1789 to March 2, 1903 (2 vols., Washington: Government Printing Office, 1903). Like the Historical Register, battle list (e) is arranged chronologically and gives the geographic designation of each operation and the regiment and companies engaged. Unlike the Historical Register, it covers only the years 1861-65 and includes casualty figures and the names of officers killed, wounded, or taken prisoner.
Battle List (f)
Battle list (f) consists of selected pages from Volume 8 of the Volunteer Army Register, a War Department reference publication containing officer rosters, combat credits, and brief histories for each Civil War Volunteer regiment. The two sections of volume 8 reproduced in this microfilm publication as list (f) give for units of U. S. Colored Troops almost exactly the same data that lists (b) gives for other volunteer units. The data were presumably drawn from a now missing register of combat credits for U. S. Colored Troops apparently prepared at the same time as battle list (b). In volume 8, pages 141-319, combat designations and casualties for particular troop units are given in footnotes to rosters that are arranged by army of service and regiment. Dates of combat actions and indications of companies engaged are given in an “Index of Battles,” pages 331-342 of the volume.
Battle List (g)
Battle list (g) is actually a chronological index of Civil War casualty records that are part of Record Group 94. The handwritten list includes the geographic designations of military engagements and shows the participation of Volunteer Union troop units. Occasional references are supplied to Regular Army participation. The battle list notes corps and regiments but not individual companies involved. Names of individuals killed or wounded are often given as well. References are provided to file numbers of pertinent casualty reports, hospital registers, and other medical records.
Battle list (h)
Battle list (h) also refers to casualty data in Record Group 94. The handwritten list is contained in two volumes titles “Chronological list o Battles during the War of the Rebellion.” In addition to geographic designations and participating Volunteer Union troop units for each operation, it includes information concerning the disposition of the wounded—and often there is descriptive material about the engagement, such as its geographic location. Occasional references are also supplied to Regular Army participation. Entries cite the published sources or original records from which they were derived.
Battle list (i)
Battle list (i), excerpted from The Medical and Surgical History of the War of the Rebellion, 1861-65, is titled “Chronological Summary of Engagements and Battles.” It notes volunteer troop participation and occasionally supplies references to Regular Army participation. While list (i) is similar to the engaged and Union losses, it is unique among them in its inclusion of Confederate casualty figures. A “Remarks and References” column in this battle list shows that the entries were derived primarily from published sources, including official reports of officers, State adjutant general office reports, newspaper accounts, and secondary works. Unpublished records, principally casualty lists, are also cited. An index to battles is at the end of the volume.
