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The Henry Yates Thompson papers contain the letters, diaries, and lectures of Thompson, an Englishman who visited the United States in 1863 and witnessed several battles in the Chattanooga Campaign, while making observations on politics, slavery, and education.

The Henry Yates Thompson papers contain 38 letters, 6 diaries, 4 documents, 2 maps, and 43 printed items (including newspaper clippings), spanning 1863-1928.

The Correspondence series covers 1863-1918, with bulk centering around 1863-1866. Thompson wrote the vast majority of letters home to his parents and siblings, while he traveled the United States and Canada; he filled his correspondence with thoughtful observations on slavery, the Civil War, women's education, and comparisons between England and the United States. On July 29, 1863, he noted the objections to the military draft by "copperheads" in New Hampshire and commented unfavorably on them. In late summer, he remarked about the Canadian support for the Confederacy (August 7, 1863); the growth of slavery, which he believed had been slowed by objections from the North (August 15, 1863); meeting abolitionist Samuel J. May (September 1, 1863); and the "marks of quiet industry" that he saw in free African Americans in the North. On September 29, 1863, he wrote a long, detailed letter about a visit to a "colored camp" in Baltimore, in which escaped slaves trained and drilled in front of Yankee officers. He also recorded the comments of several slave owners, who discussed the escape of slaves and expressed doubt that slaves would fight. In several letters, dated November 23 and December 3, 1863, Thompson described several battles in the Chattanooga Campaign at the side of Ulysses S. Grant. He wrote about the intensity of firing, expressed horror at the injuries and deaths he saw, and gave his impressions of Grant. Thompson also wrote about slaughterhouses in Chicago and the benefits of co-education to women (October 16, 1863), a journey to the Isles of Shoals (September 12, 1863), and the people he met in Keene, New Hampshire (July 23, 1863).

The letters postdating 1863 document Thompson's failed attempts to establish a lectureship on American history at Cambridge in 1865. On May 16, 1907, he declined a revival of the idea by Cambridge, citing possible objections from Harvard and the diminishing need for such an academic collaboration.

The Diaries series contains four volumes, which cover July-December 1863, with overlap in periods and events covered between volumes. As in his letters, Thompson wrote frankly about slavery and abolition, American politics, education, and various places that he visited. He also enclosed letters and ephemera related to these, such as tickets, pamphlets, advertisements, and clippings, which remain with the volumes. In Volume I (July 10-November 3, 1863), Thompson discussed the circumstances of Lincoln's election (pp. 3-4), a visit to Niagara Falls (p. 45), and the National Bank system (p. 53). Volume II (September 13-November 13, 1863) contains another account of the Battles for Chattanooga (pp. 22-31), and discussion of slavery and both sides of the conflict. Volume III (September 25-November 26, 1863) describes travels through Missouri with a German friend, and also covers the Battle of Chattanooga, but more briefly and informally. It may have served as a field notebook. Volume IV (November 15-December 15, 1863) contains further discussion of the Chattanooga Campaign and the war, as well as a description of people that Thompson encountered during his travels to Brooklyn, New York.

The Lecture Notebooks series contains two items: a rough draft and an apparent final draft of a speech on the Battles for Chattanooga, given by Thompson at Harrow School on March 7, 1865. The lecture gives a very detailed description of many aspects of the battle, including troop movements, casualties, supplies, and the role of the United States Sanitary Commission.

The Documents series contains an 1862 "Requisition for Forage" for the Confederacy, and essays entitled "Then and Now at the University of Cambridge" (1918) and "The American Lectureship" (n.d.).

The Maps series contains just one item: a manuscript map illustrating the geography and positions of troops at Chattanooga on November 23, 1863.

The Printed Materials series, spanning 1865-1941, primarily contains printed materials related to Thompson's proposed lectureship on American history at Cambridge. Also included are several obituaries for Thompson, and a book by Christopher Chancellor, Thompson's great-nephew, containing excerpts from the diaries and letters. Published in 1971, the book is entitled, An Englishman in the American Civil War: The Diaries of Henry Yates Thompson, and is housed in the Clements Library's Book Division.

The diaries of Nathan Webb include vivid descriptions of life in one of the most active Union cavalry regiments, the 1st Maine, during the Civil War. Webb's thoughtfulness, candor, and his insight into the minds of soldiers and civilians make his diary a rich resource for the study of the social and military history of the Civil War.

The strengths of Webb's diaries are his ability as a writer and his willingness to describe important incidents at great length. His descriptions range widely in content, but are always thoughtful, and he has a flawless aptitude for an anecdote. He seems particularly to have been interested in the attitudes of his fellow soldiers and of local civilians, particularly the women, but he comments extensively on daily life in the camps, strategy, officers, drilling, ethics in the army, and his feelings, positive and negative, towards those who remained in Maine. Webb's careful and detailed descriptions of every battle and skirmish in which he was involved include everything from vignettes relating an individual soldier's reactions, to specific information on the tactics and strategy of cavalry. But it is the incidents he records about day to day life that provide the greatest insight into the soldiers' minds, and Webb is both uncommonly detailed for a Civil War diarist and allows his personal opinions and perspective to dominate his descriptions. His description of Belle Isle is extraordinary in the intensity of detail and emotional impact.

These five volumes are copies from the original diaries, and were made by Webb in the late spring and summer of 1865. He notes that, with the exception of some additions made from memory to his descriptions of Libby and Belle Isle Prisons, he has copied the diary exactly as it appears in the original. Offering an interesting balance to the original, he includes occasional footnotes offering retrospective commentary on his own writing. For example, while in 1862 he wrote that the men were upset at the dismissal of McClellan, a footnote indicates that in 1865, Webb came to feel that the men had been deluded by McClellan's self-aggrandizing play for their affection. His later comments on his own vacillation while deciding whether to reenlist, on the opinions of the media and non-combatants regarding the war, and on his opinions of Meade and other leaders also include some revealing reflections.

The first fifty pages of volume 3 are severely damp-stained and written in faint ink, and in parts are very difficult to read. Included with the diaries are an 1878 receipt for the payment of poll tax in Boston and one issue and two supplements of the First Maine Bugle (Campaign II, call 3, 5 and 9), dated January and July, 1891, and July, 1892. The Bugle was the publication of the veterans' organization for the 1st Maine Cavalry. A war-time photograph of Webb was included in Tobie's regimental history.