Category Archives: Civil War

A Day in the Life: August 25

Archives give us a chance to look at the world in a lot of different ways, through lenses big and small. Today, we take a cross section of life on this date, August 25, across the decades. From 1840 to … Continue reading

“The Memorable Stone-Wall”: A local dispatch about the Battle of Cedar Mountain

In August of 1862, Confederate General Robert E. Lee led a campaign against Major General John Pope and the Army of Virginia. We know it now as the Northern Virginia Campaign. A letter in our archive discusses the aftermath of … Continue reading

Battle of Mobile Bay, Part III

By: Kevin Ray, Archival Technician This week, in honor of the 150th anniversary of the Battle of Mobile Bay, Kevin Ray gives an three-part account of the battle drawn from a combination of secondary sources and the two diaries held in the … Continue reading

Battle of Mobile Bay, Part II

By: Kevin Ray, Archival Technician This week, in honor of the 150th anniversary of the Battle of Mobile Bay, Kevin Ray wrote a three-part account of the battle drawn from a combination of secondary sources and the two Union diaries by Ellsworth … Continue reading

Battle of Mobile Bay, Part I

By: Kevin Ray, Archival Technician This week, in honor of the 150th anniversary of the Battle of Mobile Bay, Kevin Ray gives an three-part account of the battle drawn from a combination of secondary sources and two diaries held in the Division … Continue reading

April 15, 1865 – A Tale of Two Cities

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.  Englishman Charles Dickens wrote that in 1859, just two years before England’s former colonies began a long and bloody civil war. I wonder if that quote came to … Continue reading

Family Connections

With a collection as regional as the one at the W. S. Hoole Special Collections Library, it’s not surprising to find some occasional overlap. The Wynne Family Papers and the Meriwether Family Papers come together with the Coleman family, as you can see … Continue reading

The Day the Campus Burned

Five days later, and it might not have happened at all. Five days later, Robert E. Lee was surrendering at Appomattox Courthouse, and the Civil War was irreversibly moving toward its end. Five days later, Brigadier General John T. Croxton … Continue reading

Papers of H. D. Clayton Sr., General, statesman, and UA President

Over the last few months, we’ve been digitizing the papers of Henry De Lamar Clayton, Sr. As our student worker Ellyn and I see the final box of materials in sight, it seems like a good time to give an … Continue reading

Augusta Evans Wilson, novelist and Confederate patriot

In the 19th century, more and more women became not just occasional novel writers but full time authors. Hoole Special Collections Library houses the papers of Georgia native Augusta Jane Evans Wilson, who published nine sentimental novels, including Beulah, the … Continue reading