Category Archives: Letters

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

Posted on February 4, 2014 by kgmatheny | Posted in: Civil War, Everyday Life, Genealogy, Letters, Newly Online, Southern History | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

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

Posted on December 2, 2013 by kgmatheny | Posted in: Civil War, Letters, Southern History | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

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 →

Jefferson Davis’s Namesake

Posted on October 23, 2013 by kgmatheny | Posted in: Civil War, Letters | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

In 1878, more than a decade after his faction’s defeat in the Civil War, former Confederate President Jefferson Davis wrote a letter to the child of a friend, Confederate General and eventual University of Alabama President Henry De Lamar Clayton. … Continue reading →

A Slice of Life: The Helen Cline Papers

Posted on September 11, 2013 by kgmatheny | Posted in: Everyday Life, Letters, Small Collections | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Who is Helen Cline? In the grand scheme of things, she’s not an important person from our nation’s past, but in a way she is: she is an example of the millions of “ordinary” people who make the world go … Continue reading →

Witness to the Fort Mims Massacre, 1813

Posted on August 30, 2013 by kgmatheny | Posted in: Letters, Southern History, War | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

Normally, I would call this item a hidden gem, but the subject matter is pretty grisly. Two hundred years ago, during the Creek War, the “Red Stick” faction of the local Muskogee Creeks attacked and captured Fort Mims, less than … Continue reading →