Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Hatfield-Gaines Family, 1834-1981 (Mss 2275), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Small Collection 2275. Chiefy receipts, deeds, wills, and other legal and financial documents of the Hatfield and Gaines families of Simpson County, Kentucky. Includes some Civil War-era correspondence of the Hatfield family.

Slaton Family Papers, 1760-1976 (Mss 322), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Collection 322. Chiefly personal correspondence, legal and business papers, and news clippings related to the Slaton family of Hopkins County, Kentucky. Includes Civil War-era letters as well as deeds, wills, tax receipts, and other miscellaneous nineteenth century documents.

Alvis, Elizabeth Duncan (Stark), 1876-1959 (Mss 320), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid for Manuscripts Collection 320. Correspondence, genealogical notes, scrapbook, and photos chiefly related to the Stark family of Allen County and Warren County, Kentucky, especially Confederate veteran John William Stark. Includes a narrative of John William Stark's Civil War service written by his daughter, and World War I discharge certificate of Richard C. Stark (Click on "Additional Files" below).

Harris, James Russell, B. 1950 (Sc 2274), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Small Collection 2274. "The Private War of Samuel Starling," a paper by James Russell Harris detailing Starling's experiences serving in the Union Army during the Civil War. The paper is based primarily upon a collection of Starling's letters to his daughters housed at the Kentucky Library & Museum (MSS 38)

Civil War - Medical Affairs - Confederate (Sc 87), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid and scan (Click on "Additional Files" below) for Manuscripts Small Collection 87. Paper written by J. F. Heustis, Chief Surgeon, Breckinridge's Division, Tullahoma, Tennessee, to Surgeon W. J. Byrne, 9th Kentucky Regiment, detailing how to make out monthly and quarterly reports of the sick and wounded.

Cisney, Barbara (Sc 2252), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Small Collection 2252. "Bevie W. Cain," and "Civil War Letters of Bevie Cain," two papers written by Barbara Cisney for Western Kentucky University history classes and based primarily on a collection of Cain's letters held in WKU's Special Collections Library (SC 2251).

Cain, Bevie Waughn, 1844-1883 (Sc 2251), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid and typescripts (Click on "Additional Files" below) for Manuscripts Small Collection 2251. Letters (31) from Cain to James M. Davis, written mostly during the Civil War from her home and school in Breckinridge County, Kentucky, and from Illinois. A strong Confederate sympathizer, Cain responds to Davis’s support of the Union, criticizes President Abraham Lincoln, and opines freely on love, courtship and marriage. She also writes of mutual friends, family, and social and religious activities. Includes 3 additional letters to Davis from his father, sister, and a friend who writes of an opportunity to manage a store. Also includes …

Civil War, 1861-1865 - Poetry, [1862] (Sc 2264), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid and scans (Click on "Additional Files" below) for Manuscripts Small Collection 2264. Thirteen poems relating to the Civil War, some to be sung to popular tunes of the era, copied on lined ledger paper. Some of the poems praise the Union forces in the Kentucky battles of Mill Springs and Perryville; others relate to Lincoln's 1860 election and to Confederate raider John Hunt Morgan.

Cheairs, Nathaniel Frances, 1818-1914 (Sc 2257), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid and typescript (Click on "Additional Files" below) for Manuscripts Small Collection 2257. Portion of a deposition provided by Nathaniel Francis Cheairs in a claims case related to damages done to the property of Larkin F. Baker when a Civil War fortification known as Baker's Hill was constructed by Confederate forces on his property at Bowling Green, Kentucky in 1861. The original of this document is in the Tennessee State Library and Archives, Nashville, Tennessee.

Civil War, 1861-1865 - Courts-Martial And Courts Of Inquiry (Sc 2265), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid and scan (Click on "Additional Files" below) for Manuscripts Small Collection 2265. Civil War General Orders no. 269 (printed) related to courts-martial of Kentuckians or those engaged in events that occurred in Kentucky.

"Sore Vexation," The Utah Saints And The Gentile War: The Development Of The Lds Church During The Civil War, Rebecca Ann Hawks

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

The Mormons, who prefer to be called members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, tried to build a nation during the Civil War. In 1832, their prophet, Joseph Smith, prophesized that a war between the Northern and Southern states had been pre-ordained because of the Gentiles’ sins against the Saints. Mormons thought this war would be the beginning of the end times. They believed the Civil War would cause the ruin of all nations—except for the Mormon nation of Zion. Mormons held fast to the promise that God would protect their land. Early members tried to build …

Collateral Damage: Veterans And Domestic Violence In Mari Sandoz's The Tom-Walker, Kathy Bahr

Great Plains Quarterly

The Tom-Walker (1947) associates domestic violence on a national scale with the domestic violence of veterans returning home after the Civil War and two world wars. This novel anticipates both the rise of McCarthyism and the long shadow cast by the atom bomb over the years constituting the Cold War. ... The Tom-Walker is remarkable in its depiction of the ugly, almost unmentionable effects of war on the domestic lives of individual veterans. Sandoz, like a number of her contemporaries, was particularly concerned about the horrors of war, but unlike many writers, she focuses on the home front and on …

Ms-096: John W. Miner Letters, Matthew R. Gross

All Finding Aids

This collections includes the letters of John W. Miner to his wife Anna throughout his service in the Civil War with the 7th New Jersey Volunteer Infantry at Petersburg, Virginia and his service in the 4th US Cavalry at Fort Griffin, Texas. Miner’s letters are most valuable when used as a tool to study the perceptions of the Civil War soldier regarding battles and national events.

Special Collections and College Archives Finding Aids are discovery tools used to describe and provide access to our holdings. Finding aids include historical and biographical information about each collection in addition to inventories of …

Tolle Family Papers (Sc 2211), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid and scans (Click on "Additional Files" below) for Manuscripts Small Collection 2211. Genealogical information related to the Tolle family of Barren County, Kentucky. Includes copies of Roger Tolle’s 1778 Fauquier County, Virginia will, William Tolle’s journal of his overland trip from Barren County to Clay County, Missouri in 1834, and an 1864 letter from William Mansfield serving with the 21st Kentucky Infantry (Union) to his wife Elizabeth (Tolle) Mansfield.

Thomas-Stiles Families (Sc 2208), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid and typescripts (Click on "Additional Files" below) for Manuscripts Small Collection 2208. Letters (1851-1946) of the Thomas and Stiles families of Nelson County and McLean County, Kentucky. They write of family news, illnesses and deaths, farm matters and local Civil War-related incidents, including guerrilla activity and the emancipation of their slaves. Includes a deed of gift for slaves. Also includes typescripts of the documents by John B. Thomas, Jr. with notes, annotations, maps, and other background information relating to the content and writers of the letters.

United Daughters Of The Confederacy - Louisville, Kentucky (Mss 315), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Collection 315. Minute book and membership roster of the Albert Sidney Johnston Chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy, Louisville, Kentucky, 18 June 1897 to 9 May 1899.

Traughber, John, 1793-1867 - Letters To (Sc 2214), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Small Collection 2214. Three letters from family members in Lincoln County, North Carolina to John Traughber and his wife in Adairville, Logan County, Kentucky. The writers discuss the health of family members, crop prices, the discovery of gold, and, in a 17 March 1861 letter, the possibility of war.

Thompson, John Quincy, 1831-1927 (Sc 2209), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid and scan (Click on "Additional Files" below) for Manuscripts Small Collection 2209. Letter from J. Q. Thompson, Troy, Texas, to Hattie B. Hale, Nashville, Arkansas in which he relates his memories about a group of Arkansas Civil War volunteers. He mentions but does not give specific information about Doctor Andrew Hale.

Zimmerman, Heidi (Sc 2171), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Small Collection 2171. Biographical sketch of James Proctor Knott, Kentucky lawyer, politician, and governor, based on the original documents housed in the Knott family manuscript collection, Kentucky Library & Museum, Western Kentucky University.

Lee, Robert Edward, 1807-1870 (Sc 2149), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid and typescript (click on Additional Files below) for Manuscripts Small Collection 2149. Letter from Robert Edward Lee to Colonel Robert P. Blount, Provost Marshal at Guiney Depot [Guiney's Station], Virginia. Lee instructs him to hold the position, declines to provide artillery support, and refers to the transportation of prisoners. Includes copies of Confederate postage stamps and currency. Poor quality photostatic copy.

Mayes Family Papers (Sc 2153), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Small Collection 2153. Miscellaneous materials, primarily deeds and recording clerks' certificates, relating to the Mayes family of Barren County, Kentucky and associated families. Includes Memorial Day gravesite photo and 1903 school program. Also includes Civil War soldier's letter written from Davidson County, Tennessee, 16 March 1862 (Click on "Additional Files" below for scan).

Lucas Family Papers (Mss 265), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid and photograph (additional file) for Manuscript Collection 265. Correspondence, legal and financial papers, genealogical material, and photographs of the Lucas family of Warren County, Kentucky. Most of the material relates to Nathaniel Lucas (d. 1807 in Warren County), his children, and one of his descendants, Miss Nancy Clyde Lucas.

Wilson, Ansel, 1834-1912 (Sc 2145), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid and scans (Click on "Additional Files" below) for Manuscripts Small Collection 2145. Three letters regarding the Civil War pension of Ansel Wilson, Grayson County, Kentucky, who served with the 17th Kentucky Infantry (Union).

Moore, Levi A. (Sc 2133), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid and scans (Click on "Additional Files" below) for Manuscripts Small Collection 2133. Certificates appointing Levi A. Moore, of Warren County, Kentucky, a corporal in Company K, 52nd Regiment, Kentucky Volunteers, and discharging Moore from service.

Cosby Family Papers (Mss 242), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Collection 242. Letters to John Dudley Cosby, Muhlenberg County, and his family, from other family members in Virginia, Kentucky, Arkansas and Mississippi. Includes genealogical data, some of Cosby's personal papers, and his estate inventory.

The Visual Documentation Of Antietam: Peaceful Settings, Morbid Curiosity, And A Profitable Business, Kristilyn Baldwin

The Gettysburg College Journal of the Civil War Era

On September 17, 1862, Confederate General Robert E. Lee led the Army of Northern Virginia into Sharpsburg, Maryland to confront Federal General George McClellan and the Army of the Potomac. The battle that followed became the single bloodiest day in American history. There were approximately 25,000 American casualties and battlefields were left in desolation, strewn with corpses needing burial. The Battle of Antietam, or Sharpsburg, is a well-documented and important battle of the Civil War. Endless research has been done regarding its impact on the war, military strategies, and politics. However, there is a unique aspect of Antietam which merits …

“A Debt Of Honor”: The Hegemonic Benevolence Of Richmond’S Female Elites At The “Last Confederate Christmas” Of 1864, Ashley M. Whitehead

The Gettysburg College Journal of the Civil War Era

In poignant remembrance of the last Christmas in the Confederate White House, Varina Davis, First Lady of the Confederacy, reflected upon that special event in an extended article for the New York Sunday World, some thirty-two years after the Confederacy’s final Christmas. Davis recounted the event fondly and praised the transformation of her female peers into perfect models of Confederate endurance under the extreme duress of civil war. In re-creating the dramaturgy of the three-part event, which was organized and hosted in large part by the Confederacy’s First Lady, Davis opened a critical window into southern sensibilities and the cultural …

The Rhetoric Of Destruction: Racial Identity And Noncombatant Immunity In The Civil War Era, James M. Bartek

University of Kentucky Doctoral Dissertations

This study explores how Americans chose to conduct war in the mid-nineteenth century and the relationship between race and the onset of “total war” policies. It is my argument that enlisted soldiers in the Civil War era selectively waged total war using race and cultural standards as determining factors. A comparative analysis of the treatment of noncombatants throughout the United States between 1861 and 1865 demonstrates that nonwhites invariably suffered greater depredations at the hands of military forces than did whites. Five types of encounters are examined: 1) the treatment of white noncombatants by regular Union and Confederate forces; 2) …

"The Last Full Measure Of Devotion": The Battle Of Gettysburg And The New Museum In Schmucker Hall, Bradley R. Hoch, Gerald Christianson

Adams County History

Schmucker Hall offers an unprecedented opportunity to interpret the role of religion in the Civil War and the American expenment in democracy. In particular it can give palpable expression to major themes in Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address concerning the battle itself, the conflict as a time of testing, the sacrifices of those who fought here, and the hope these sacrifices bring to the young nation for a new birth of freedom.

Built in 1832 and named for an abolitionist and founder of Gettysburg Seminary, Samuel Simon Schmucker, it is the original structure on the oldest continuously-operating Lutheran seminary in the …

The First Battle Of Gettysburg: April 22, 1861, Timothy H. Smith

Adams County History

The fears of invasion voiced by the residents of south-central Pennsylvania prior to the Gettysburg Campaign are often the subject of ridicule in books and articles written on the battle. But to appreciate the events that occurred during the summer of 1863, it is necessary to understand how the citizens were affected by the constant rumors of invasion during the first two years of the war. And although there were many such scares prior to the battle, nothing reached the level of anxiety that was felt during the first few days of the war. On Monday morning, April 15, 1861, …