An important, unpublished, and exceptionally well-written “brown-water navy” journal kept between 1862 and 1863 during a critical phase in the execution of the Union’s Anaconda Plan on the Mississippi River, featuring extensive battle and contraband content as well as two important maps. Evidently from Cape Breton, Canada (some 40,000 Canadians.....
A brief but interesting letter from an important period in US–Indian relations, with mention of William Clark. George Gibson, then the Commissary General of Subsistence responsible for feeding the military, informs Lieutenant A.M. Wright that “deputation of Indians amounting to 28 persons will pass Mackinw on their return from the.....
A detailed letter from a Georgia lawmaker quietly trying to put a case together against a man for taking a female slave to New York—and freedom. This letter, from William Young Hansell to Archibald Russell Spence Hunter, provides a synopsis of the situation around a (former) slave named Katy and.....
![Item #5920 Historical Notes of Burlington [Connecticut.] Written by J.C. Hart in 1871, formerly a...](https://jamesarsenault.cdn.bibliopolis.com/pictures/5920_1.jpg?width=320&height=427&fit=bounds&v=1603315503)
An archive of materials bearing on the early history of Burlington, Connecticut, particularly interesting for its accounts of many citizens of whom little or nothing would otherwise be known. At the center of this archive is the manuscript text Historical Notes of Burlington by one Mr. J. C. Hart (1792–1881).....
![Item #2100 [Manuscript Journal of a Boston Merchant]. Ralph Haskins](https://jamesarsenault.cdn.bibliopolis.com/pictures/2100_1.jpg?width=320&height=427&fit=bounds&v=1560463139)
Manuscript journal of a Boston merchant—an uncle of Ralph Waldo Emerson—illuminating trade, shipping, and life in Boston during the early years of the American republic. Ralph Haskins, born in Boston on April 5, 1779, was apprenticed to Theodore Lyman, a well-established merchant, at a time when Boston was a......
![Item #7835 [Autograph letter, signed, eulogizing Abraham Lincoln.]. S. J. Heatherly](https://jamesarsenault.cdn.bibliopolis.com/pictures/7835_1.jpg?width=320&height=427&fit=bounds&v=1684260731)
A rich letter revealing a Union soldier’s high regard for President Abraham Lincoln, composed less than two months after both Lincoln’s assassination (on 15 April 1865) and the close of the Civil War. Provost Marshall and Lieutenant S. J. Heatherly writes here to J. V. Wood from the Headquarters of.....
A rich group of five letters by the leading figure in Great Britain’s support for the South, regarding the erection of the statue of Confederate General Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson in Capitol Square, Richmond, Virginia. During and after the Civil War, A. Beresford Hope (1820–1887) and his followers cast famed rebel.....
A letter written aboard the steamer Natchez from Vicksburg to New Orleans in 1885, describing events and conversations on board as well as the countryside, agriculture, and Civil War sights along the route. This letter from New York State apple grower Silas Seward Hopkins is written on Natchez letterhead showing.....
An interesting fair-copy manuscript account of an 1883 American tour by English carpet manufacturer William Horsfall with his wife and niece, chronicling their visits to Connecticut, Philadelphia, Niagara Falls, New York City, New Hampshire and Boston. William Horsall was a manager of Naylor’s Carpet Factory in Kidderminster, located in the.....
A Confederate surgeon’s letter illuminating medical aspects of the Civil War. Tazewell Howard, newly arrived assistant surgeon to George Paul Harrison’s training camp outside Savannah, Georgia, describes his new appointment and attempts to use his connections to secure a higher paying post. He reports a certain dissatisfaction with his lot.....
![Item #7859 [Manuscript account book of Philadelphia shipsmiths Snyder and Myers.]. Joseph Snyder,...](https://jamesarsenault.cdn.bibliopolis.com/pictures/7859_1.jpg?width=320&height=427&fit=bounds&v=1684260731)
A substantive account book of Joseph Snyder and William Myers compiled during their forty-year long business association with the prominent Philadelphia businessman and shipmaker Anthony Cuthbert, revealing the full scope of their work. While the partners are identified in the 1822 Philadelphia city directory as “shipsmiths,” it is clear from.....
![Item #5163 [Journal of a Harvard student and teacher at Phillips Academy, Andover.] Diary from...](https://jamesarsenault.cdn.bibliopolis.com/pictures/5163_1.jpg?width=320&height=427&fit=bounds&v=1591192443)
A journal kept by noted Ipswich, Massachusetts minister David T. Kimball during his final year of studies at Harvard University and Harvard Divinity School, and a year of teaching at Phillips Andover Academy. Rev. David Tenney Kimball (1782–1860) was a prominent abolitionist and Pastor of the First Parish in.....
A manuscript pass authorizing two men to join the forces defending Fort Ticonderoga, issued less than two months prior to the siege of the Fort (2–6 July 1777) by British General John Burgoyne during the Saratoga Campaign. The pass reads in its entirety: Norwich [Mass.] 20th of May 1777 by.....
An engaging letter in two parts by an early Indiana settler, written two months before Indiana formally became a state (on 11 December 1816). Born in Burlington County, New Jersey, Joseph Lame (1766–1839) was a tanner by trade and is believed to have emigrated west in the company of his.....
A fascinating document recording the sale of whiskey to the Wyandotte, bearing the name of Christopher Miller, who was captured by Native Americans as a child and lived among them for many years, then rejoined the white community and fought in the Northwest Indian War. This document reads in full.....
A French and Indian War-era letter addressed to Thomas Hancock Esq. of Boston concerning men and supplies at Fort Cumberland, written three years after the fort fell to British and colonial forces. George Lewis is recorded in 1750 as a “boatmaster” in Gorham’s Rangers—one of the most notable ranger units.....
A compelling group of letters, all retained copies, written in response to the upcoming election of 1848 by a supporter of Democratic presidential candidate Gen. Lewis Cass. Marshall argues for the removal of the Quartermaster General of New Orleans, Major Daniel D. Tompkins (1798–1863), whose scheming on behalf of Whig.....
This letter by slaveowner and future North Carolina legislator Thomas David Smith McDowell (1823–1898) charges its recipients to sell “my man Harry” as soon as Harry arrives, via raft, in Wilmington: If you can get five hundred dollars, you can take it, nothing less than that sum, and as much.....
![Item #5491 [Manuscript compilation of official reports for the Battle of Port Gibson.]. George...](https://jamesarsenault.cdn.bibliopolis.com/pictures/5491_1.jpg?width=320&height=427&fit=bounds&v=1563205789)
A compelling brigade battlefield report composed in the immediate wake of the Battle of Port Gibson (Mississippi, 1 May ‘63), an assault that set the stage for Grant’s pivotal siege of Vicksburg; the eight reports of Army of the Tennessee regiments and batteries chronicle extensive combat; the capture of Confederate.....
A group of papers documenting book donations made by the Maryland State Library to the Library of Congress in 1841, including personal correspondence between librarians John S. Meehan of the library of Congress and D. Ridgley of State Library of Maryland. A form issued by The Committee on the.....
![Item #2918 [Ipswich Massachusetts Livery Owner’s Daybook]. Frederick Mitchell](https://jamesarsenault.cdn.bibliopolis.com/pictures/2918_1.jpg?width=320&height=427&fit=bounds&v=1560463212)
Day book of Frederic Mitchell, an Ipswich, Massachusetts innkeeper, recording the daily rentals from his livery. Recorded herein are daily rents and rates for all manner of horse-drawn transportation. With customers, by and large renting chaises in the warmer months and sleighs in the winter. Beyond chaises and sleighs, Mitchell’s.....
Two manuscript journals in one volume of Maine ship captain Josiah Mitchell (1812?–1876), best known as Captain of the burned and sunken ship Hornet, famously described by Mark Twain in the Sacramento Daily Union in 1866. Documented in these sea journals are the two angst-filled final voyages of Captain.....
A letter of inquiry from Maryland Secretary of State Thomas O’Neal, on behalf of Governor Enoch L. Lowe, relating to a notorious case in which slave-catcher Thomas McCreary kidnapped free Black teenagers Rachel Parker and Elizabeth Parker in Pennsylvania. The letter reads in full: (copy) Executive Department, Annapolis March 24th.....
![Item #7652 Journal of a [whaling] Voyage to the Pacific Ocean [under Captain] Henry P Collier...](https://jamesarsenault.cdn.bibliopolis.com/pictures/7652_1.jpg?width=320&height=427&fit=bounds&v=1674069185)
An attractive 1840s Atlantic & Pacific Ocean whaling journal for a voyage aboard the Elizabeth Starbuck out of Nantucket, with four whale stamps and records of many more whales killed. The manuscript has been written from both ends of the volume, the earlier period 1846-1848 in English by the ship's.....
A delightfully written and richly illustrated journal and scrapbook chronicling a bike tour undertaken by four friends through England and Scotland, written and compiled by a young American woman completing her doctoral thesis in English literature. “This journal starts properly with two soaked, blistered, dust-blown, bedraggled travellers pulling up to.....