Collections : [University of Michigan William L. Clements Library]

Farquhar Macrae, a Scottish traveler, wrote this 48-page journal featuring descriptions of his time in Connecticut between August 11 and September 10, 1832. He provided frequently acerbic and disdainful remarks on the landscape, people, social and political climates, Andrew Jackson, military and navy wages, soldiers' appearance, conceit, inhospitality, wealth, poverty, hypocrisy, and more. He made comparisons between the customs observed in different parts of the United States and Great Britain and Europe.

Farquhar Macrae, a Scottish traveler, wrote this 48-page journal featuring descriptions of his time in Connecticut between August 11 and September 10, 1832. He provided remarks on the landscape, people, social and political climates, Andrew Jackson, military and navy wages, conceit, inhospitality, wealth, poverty, hypocrisy, and more. He made comparisons between the customs observed in different parts of the United States and Great Britain and Europe. Between August and September, Macrae spent time in New Haven, Hartford, Stafford Springs, Vernon, and Norwich. At the end of the journal, Macrae outlined his plans to travel to Savannah and then to Florida to visit his sister.

The marbled cover of the journal and the title on the first page indicate that this is the seventh journal Macrae wrote during his travels. This journal features descriptions of parties hosted in New Haven (despite the cholera outbreak); militia "training day" with mandatory participation for all who could not afford to pay the $15 annual fine; differences in treatment and pay of Navy soldiers versus those serving on land; his various relationships included a potentially romantic one with a woman named Mary Benjamin; and other topics. In one case, he remarked on his tiresome two-day stay at the Washington Hotel, a health resort at Stafford Springs. Near the end of the journal Macrae made his feelings towards American culture very clear. He discussed the lack of a "national mark of character" that leads to "bad copying of foreign tastes." In a candid expression of his views on the people of the United States, he wrote:

"I contemn the nation for their concealed fondness for aristocracy, and outward dislike towards it. I dislike their consummate vanity and overweening self-conceit. I abhor their Jacobin creed and despise the impudent freedom of their lower classes. I pity their cupidity and jealousy, and feel vexed at their obstinate eulogy. Their country is magnificent and has incredibly advanced in prosperity & improvement, and will be no doubt the greatest of nations if it holds together, but at present it is a mere child" (September 4, 1832)

John P. Reynolds, Jr., was 19 years old when he enlisted in the Salem Light Infantry, one of the first units to respond to Lincoln's call for volunteers in 1861 at the beginning of the Civil War. His journal provides an account of life in the army during the opening states of the war, and includes long, detailed passages describing drills, parades, ceremonies and celebrations, and the ways in which soldiers chose to entertain themselves.

John P. Reynolds' journal is an unusually literate and well-written account of life in the army during the opening stages of the Civil War, and includes long, detailed passages describing drills, parades, ceremonies and celebrations, and the ways in which soldiers chose to entertain themselves. It is an example of a superb Civil War journal containing almost no reference to military activity. While nostalgically reviewing the events since the unit was called, Reynolds himself noted that "the pastimes we had experienced...combined together presented more the aspect of a pleasure excursion or mammoth pic-nic, than a military campaign during the period of actual warfare" (p. 90).

Particularly noteworthy descriptions include those of the camp at Relay House, of particular drills, flag-raising ceremonies, and of celebrations of the anniversary of the battle of Bunker Hill and of the Fourth of July. Reynolds is at his best when recounting an operation on July 3rd to capture a Rebel recruiter, Samuel Ogle Tilghman, at his home on the coast. Though no shots were fired, the atmosphere Reynolds sets provides a strong sense of what it must have been like for a young soldier on patrol. Tilghman was released on parole of honor just two weeks later, on July 26, 1861.

The Reynolds journal appears to be the second and only surviving part of a series that probably originally contained three volumes. The first covering muster to June 6, 1861, the third, from July 14th to mustering out on August 1st.