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Civil War, 1861-1865 - Paducah, Kentucky (Sc 1422), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid and typescript (Click on "Additional Files" below) for Manuscripts Small Collection 1422. Letter, 6 November, to his mother from “Alvis”(?), probably serving with the 9th Illinois Infantry. From Camp Paine, Paducah, Kentucky, he writes of living conditions, a skirmish with Confederate forces, his hopes to experience a full battle, and his belief that the Confederates have better officers, but inferior soldiers.

Civil War, 1861-1865 - Military Life (Sc 1420), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Small Collection 1420. Letter written by Union soldier John (no last name), Camp Paint Creek, Kentucky, to his wife (no place noted), graphically describing marching from Winchester, Kentucky, to present camp. He mentions that Kentucky has the dirtiest soldiers he has ever seen.

Bush, Thomas (Sc 1421), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid and typescript (Click on "Additional Files" below) for Manuscripts Small Collection 1421. Civil War letter written by Thomas Bush, Louisville, Kentucky, to his brother, commenting on the poor hospital care he is receiving for consumption. He notes his doctor's opinion that the man who enlisted him should be sent to the penitentiary.

Downing, Amos, B. 1839 (Sc 1423), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid and typescript (Click on "Additional Files" below) for Manuscripts Small Collection 1423. Letter, 10 March 1862, written by Amos Downing from Belmont, Missouri, to his brother Philip Downing, Portland, Maine, relating his military experiences since leaving Virginia on February 16. Has especially good comments about activities at Columbus, Kentucky.

Ms-063: Melancthon E. Washburn Family Collection, Stephen H. Light

All Finding Aids

The Melancthon E. Washburn Papers consist primarily of correspondence between Washburn and his family members during the Civil War period. While the letters date anywhere from 1857 to 1883, most of them fall into the 1861 to 1865 time frame. The collection also consists of a wide range of miscellaneous items, including newspaper clippings collected into scrapbooks, the diary of Melancthon’s son William Washburn, wedding invitations, Confederate bonds and currency, and a public broadside advertising a slave auction.

Special Collections and College Archives Finding Aids are discovery tools used to describe and provide access to our holdings. Finding aids include …

Jack Hopkins' Civil War, Peter C. Vermilyea

Adams County History

In the 1862 Pennsylvania College album there is a photograph of John Hopkins, who that year was entering his fifteenth year of service as the college's janitor. In one student's book, the portrait of Hopkins jokingly refers to him as the school's "vice president." This appellation speaks volumes about the life of the African-American custodian, for while it was clearly made in jest as a token of the students' genuine affection for Hopkins, it symbolizes the gulf between the white students and the black janitor. It goes without saying that the students found the picture humorous because they understood that …

Adams County History 2005

Adams County History

No abstract provided.

[Introduction To] What Caused The Civil War? Reflections On The South And Southern History, Edward L. Ayers

Bookshelf

The Southern past has proven to be fertile ground for great works of history. Peculiarities of tragic proportions—a system of slavery flourishing in a land of freedom, secession and Civil War tearing at a federal Union, deep poverty persisting in a nation of fast-paced development—have fed the imaginations of some of our most accomplished historians.

Foremost in their ranks today is Edward L. Ayers, author of the award-winning and ongoing study of the Civil War in the heart of America, the Valley of the Shadow Project. In wide-ranging essays on the Civil War, the New South, and the twentieth-century South, …

What Caused The Civil War?, Edward L. Ayers

History Faculty Publications

The challenge of explaining the Civil War has led historians to seek clarity in two ways of thought. One school, the fundamentalists, emphasizes the intrinsic, inevitable conflict between slavery and free labor. The other, the revisionists, emphasizes discrete events and political structures rather than slavery itself. Both sides see crucial parts of the problem, but it has proved difficult to reconcile the perspectives because they approach the Civil War with different assumptions about what drives history.

A Visit To The Battlefield, Michael J. Birkner, Richard E. Winslow

Adams County History

This piece was transcribed and edited by Michael J. Birkner and Richard E. Winslow.

With fighting concluded at Gettysburg on July 3, 1863, the enormous task of burying the dead, treating the wounded, and rehabilitating the town began in earnest. Although Gettysburg looked and smelled worse than it ever had or ever would again, thousands of people arrived on the battlefield in the days and weeks following General Robert E. Lee's retreat. Some came to minister to the sick and reclaim the bodies of neighbors and loved ones; others scavenged souvenirs of the battle. Of the many visits to the …

Wood, Oscar (Sc 1413), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid, scan and typescript (Click on "Additional Files" below) for Manuscripts Small Collection 1413. Letter, 28 June 1864, written by Oscar Wood from Decatur, Alabama, to Mary Hanley, Cairo, Illinois. Wood writes of being stationed at Paducah, Kentucky with the 32nd Wisconsin Infantry in March, when Confederate General Nathan B. Forrest attempted to engage them in battle.

Atkinson, Elizabeth Ann (Chilton), 1808-1872 (Sc 1412), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid and typescript (Click on "Additional Files" below) for Manuscripts Small Collection 1412. Letter, 7 December, written by Elizabeth Atkinson, Smithfield, Virginia, to her son. She discusses the health of her husband and describes military activity in the vicinity, including theft and looting by Union soldiers, but expresses her desire to reside at home. She describes the effects of the war on local trade in food and livestock, expresses her fear that Richmond will be captured, and gives news of friends and family members. She also refers to the arrest of a “nephew,” possibly of her brother General Robert …

Keeping A Town Alive?: The Civil War Re-Enactment Of The Battle Of Pilot Knob, Laura Marie Gentry

Honors Theses

There is a place surrounded by thousands of acres of natural forests encircled by seven beautiful state parks nestled between the highest peaks in Missouri with rich Ozark history. Imagine three small towns situated in a valley of the Ozarks Mountains surrounded by breathtaking scenery, a perfect retreat from busyness of the city and the working world. Would you be interested in escaping here for a weekend or possibly for the rest of your life?

If you even entertained the idea, local Chamber of Commerce officials succeeded in making you believe that Arcadia Valley or the towns of lronton, Arcadia, …

Devotedly Yours: The Prison Letters Of Captain Joseph Scrivner Ambrose Iv, C.S.A., Rebeccah Helen Pedrick

Honors Theses

Tales of war-valor, courage, intrigue, winners, losers, common men, outstanding officers. Such stories captivate, enthrall, and inspire each generation, though readers often feel distanced from the participants. The central figures of these tales are heroes, seemingly beyond the reach of ordinary men. Through a more intimate glimpse of one such figure, the affectionate letters of Joseph Scrivner Ambrose to his sister, written from prison during America's Civil War, perhaps one can find more than a hero- one can find a man with whom one can identify, a man who exemplifies the truth of the old adage, "Heroes are made, not …