Collections : [University of Michigan Bentley Historical Library]

Student at Hillsdale College, soldier during the Civil War with the 64th Illinois Volunteers. Diaries, 1860-1872, describing student life, wartime activities, trip to Europe and the Near East, and western trip containing impressions of Indians and Mormons; also correspondence, various writings, and commonplace book, 1872.

The Francis Wayland Dunn collection consists of diaries, correspondence, writings, and miscellaneous personal materials.

Detroit, Michigan journalist and historian. Correspondence, speeches, scrapbooks, book reviews and manuscripts of unpublished writings; also research materials concerning Lewis Cass, Augustus B. Woodward, Gabriel Richard, and Alexander J. Groesbeck, and papers relating to the Civil War in Michigan, the development of Harper Hospital in Detroit, Michigan, the Detroit Public Library, the Detroit Free Press, and the building of the Mackinac Bridge.

The Frank B. Woodford papers consist of correspondence, speeches, scrapbooks, book reviews and manuscripts of unpublished writings; also research materials concerning Lewis Cass, Augustus B. Woodward, Gabriel Richard, and Alexander J. Groesbeck, and papers relating to the Civil War in Michigan, the development of Harper Hospital in Detroit, Michigan, the Detroit Public Library, the Detroit Free Press, and the building of the Mackinac Bridge. The collection is organized into four series: Correspondence; Writings and related material; Scrapbooks and newspaper clippings; and Other materials.

The Franklin H. Bailey collection contains correspondence, diaries, a scrapbook, photographs, and other materials (including military discharge papers, Civil War songbooks, and scientific papers). 56 letters written to his parents in Adrian, Michigan from 1861-1865 detail his time in the military, with references to camp life, religion, sickness, concern over money matters, and skirmishes in which he was engaged, including a graphic account of the battle of Pittsburg Landing. An additional undated Civil War letter from Minerva Bailey's first husband, Levi Greenfield, reports on rumors of victories at Richmond and Vicksburg. Later correspondence includes letters he wrote to his wife while on a trip abroad in 1873 and a scrapbook of letters, 1880-1901, primarily concerning educational matters. Diaries (1865-1883) at least partially written in Pitman shorthand provide additional information on his war service, student life at Hillsdale College, finances, and teaching and scientific interests. A poem titled "Big Yank" refers to the Peninsula Campaign in 1862.

Soldier in the 6th Michigan Cavalry, Company M., during the Civil War. The collection includes a diary containing entries that describe camp life, Civil War soldiering, and the weather. Also, portraits.

The Frank P. Grommon papers consists of a diary containing entries that describe camp life, Civil War soldiering, and the weather. Also includes portraits.

The collection consists of correspondence, miscellaneous bank notes and printed material (including documents related to the government of the Confederate States of America), and a photographic portrait. There are six letters (1862-1865) written to his brother in which Field describes Camp Palmer; gives a graphic account of a march in pouring rain and the night spent sitting on shocks of wheat; tells of the capture of their picket line through the use of a countersign countersign; and discusses the soldiers' vote and the practice of enlisting men from the South as substitutes for northern draftees. Field also gives details of the battle in which he was wounded and criticizes officers in command. The collection includes one letter (Sept. 4, 1863) from Capt. George W. Lee relating to transportation charges for Field.

Alpena, Michigan, resident. Correspondence, including a letter from Thomas Wentworth Higginson and a letter describing Goodrich's Civil War experience in the 115th New York Volunteers at the Battle of Morris Island, South Carolina, genealogical material, recipe book, and miscellanea; also photographs.

Fred Stanley Goodrich papers consist of correspondence, including a letter from Thomas Wentworth Higginson and a letter describing Goodrich's Civil War experience in the 115th New York Volunteers at the Battle of Morris Island, South Carolina, genealogical material, recipe book, miscellanea and individual and group photographs of Goodrich family members. The collection is noteworthy for a detailed description of the Battle of Morris Island in South Carolina during the summer of 1863.

Research files of Garry D. Packard, a local historian from Plymouth, Michigan. Documents, articles, spreadsheets, and maps containing research and historical information about churches, graveyards, veterans, and historical businesses in Plymouth, Canton, and other areas in Southeast Michigan.

The collection contains digital files of collected, transcribed, and indexed materials relating to the history of Plymouth Township, Mich., and the surrounding area, including school records, census indexes, birth, marriage and death indexes, cemetery indexes (Parkview, Old Baptist, Presbyterian, Riverside, and Shearer Cemetery), indexes of veterans, and other materials. Also contains maps of Riverside and Old Baptist Cemeteries and a biographical sketch of American Revolutionary War veteran Titus Vespatian Hoisington.

Ten letters written while he was serving in Company D, 9th Michigan Infantry, September 1864-June 1865, Most of the letters are written from Chattanooga. He tells of cutting logs to build shanties; of voting in the regiment (with 500 out of 506 votes cast for Lincoln); and of drilling new recruits. He likes soldiering in fair weather, but five men in a small cloth tent on rainy days have to keep jokes going to be happy. The camp on the banks of the Tennessee River was a pleasant place for watching steamboats and trains. On November 18 he went on detached service guarding prisoners. One prisoner was shot for disobeying orders, but he himself had no trouble with the about 200 prisoners in the camp. In January he remarked that "full rations is something I have not seen since I have been down here." Though costly, they sometimes bought butter, cheese, cakes, pies, and sometimes were given soft bread instead of hard tack. He tells of a Negro regiment doing picket duty for a white regiment. He hopes some of the men back home get caught in the draft soon to take place. The weather is cold with rain and snow, but the boys are well. In February he and a friend built a shanty with a bed and a fireplace. They took turns getting dinner-eggs, sausages, meat, bread, butter, coffee. Ninety new recruits arrived in camp. They had a great time February 20th when guns were fired. "Then all the locomotives and steamboats and mills and furnaces and everything that could make a noise set up a whistle for about 10 minutes. There was quite a howl in the city of Chattanooga." In April they were in Nashville. They had news of Lee's surrender, and there was "tall canonading to celebrate."

Surveyor of lands in northern Michigan and in the Upper Peninsula; Macomb County land speculator; journal of his surveying expedition along the shores of Lake Superior, letters received, historical essays, family materials.

The George Cannon collection consists of letters, a journal, historical essays written for the Macomb County Historical Society, and various land records, including some surveying notes. Most of the letters were received by Cannon or other members of his family. There is in these letters much documentation relating to the Upper Peninsula and to the history of the settlement of Macomb County. Of especial interest are those letters and documents relating to the border dispute between Wisconsin and Michigan (particularly in the period of the first decade of the 20th Century) arising out of a surveying error in the 1830s. Many of the letters are from Upper Peninsula businessman and University of Michigan Regent Peter White.

Other items of interest are essays and lectures of the students who attended the Stony Creek Lyceum Rochester School where Cannon taught in the 1840s, a few Civil War letters from his brother Levi Cannon who served with Co. B of the 22nd Michigan Infantry, and essays Cannon wrote on his surveying mentor William A. Burt and on the early settlement of Macomb County.

The Lockley papers include diaries, transcriptions of diaries, maps of battles in which he participated, including the first and second battles of Bull Run, Antietam, Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville and Gettysburg. Also included is a copy of a report by Lt. Colonel Benjamin D. Pritchard on the capture of Jefferson Davis and other Confederate leaders by the 4th Michigan Cavalry. There are also a few photographs and miscellaneous materials from his wartime service.

Resident of Lawton, Mich., and corporal in Co. D, 6th Michigan Infantry during the Civil War. Letters to his family commenting on his life in New Orleans, Louisiana, during the Civil War. Portrais of Alford and of his wife Ann Maria Stewart Alford.

The collection contains correspondence to his family, (particularly his sister, Helen) commenting on his life in New Orleans, Louisiana during the Civil War. Also included is a copy print portrait of Alford in uniform with a gun in his hand, and a copy print of his wife, Ann Maria Stewart Alford.

Three diaries (1863-1865) written while he was serving in Company D, Sixth Michigan Cavalry, as quartermaster sergeant and later lieutenant. Most of his entries concern the weather, food, sickness, letters, camp life,and battles with brief references to Gettysburg, Opequon, and Appomattox Court House. A large portion of his time was spent in the Campbell General Hospital, Washington, D.C. On May 19, 1864 he mentions Mrs. Mary Todd Lincoln's visit to the hospital. Barbour was a resident of Fenton, Mich. This collection also includes an 1863 diary of Barbour's brother Frank A. Barbour. Frank Barbour served in Company A, 5th Michigan Cavalry. He died July 10, 1863, from wounds received in action at Gettysburg. The diary contains Frank's description of the events leading up to the Battle of Gettysburg, and George's account of his brother's last days.

Diary recording daily events of military life, including the battle of Chancellorsville; also includes transcript of diary.

George W. French served as 1st Lieutenant of the Michigan 10th Cavalry from 1864-1865 in the Union army. The collection includes materials related to his wartime activates as well as post-war correspondences and forms.

The George W. French Papers consist of wartime records of the Michigan 10th Cavalry dating from 1863 to 1865. Included are lists of quartermaster stores, requisition forms, and other supply documents of the 10th Michigan Cavalry and 8th and 9th Tennessee Cavalry. Also French's Officer Commission signed by Michigan Governor Austin Blair. Post-war documents include personal correspondence, French's military pension forms, and other assorted personal papers dating to 1906.

Grand Rapids, Michigan, family. Letters of Albert and Martha Calhoun Graves, including letters written during Civil War while Graves was a member of Co. B, First Michigan Engineers and Mechanics; also family letter reflecting daily life.

The Graves family collection consists of letters of Albert and Martha Graves written during his Civil War service. There are also other family letters, genealogical information, and various other financial and legal family documents.

Vermontville, Michigan, family. Civil War correspondence and diaries of Joseph B. Griswold, musician in the Second Michigan Cavalry, and later Assistant Surgeon in the Fourth Michigan Infantry; also material concerning the land transactions of Roger W. Griswold; and miscellaneous clippings, photograph, correspondence, and printed material.

The Griswold family papers includes materials for both Roger W. and Joseph B. Griswold. The bulk of the collection consists of letters, diaries, and other materials of Joseph B. Griswold relating to his Civil War service. There is a diary concerning his year as a musician in which he notes the weather, the days when they played for dress parade and guard mounting, and an occasional serenade for someone such as General Pope. He comments on camp duties, food, a trip down the river, some hospital duties, saying, "This hospital business I detest ... wish I was back in the regiment," his own bout with dysentery; and his wanting to go home. "I'm sick of soldiering. Wish I was out ... but what's the good of wishing."

In the 4th Infantry, he wrote some thirty letters to his sister. He describes quarters, their moves from camp to camp from Huntsville, Ala. to San Antonio, Texas, and caring for the sick and wounded. There is much chit-chat about home folks and affairs; his occasional dinners out with Southern families in which there are young ladies, with perhaps a musical evening to follow; church services; and Christmas southern style.

The diary, which supplements these letters, also tells of social calls, dances, a fox hunt, card games, church services, rides into the country on his horse, drinking among the men, and horse racing in their camp in San Antonio in which his horse is entered. The drinking water is bad, and he is often sick with diarrhea. Mosquitoes bother both men and horses. He comments on food or the lack of it and on camp gardens. He thought some of setting up a medical practice in San Antonio, but instead returned to school.

Otsego, Michigan, family. Letters to Mrs. Sabra Hager discussing personal and family affairs, including mention of neighbors leaving for the Pikes Peak gold rush; also ninety letters from her husband, Phineas A. Hager, of Co. B, Nineteenth Michigan Infantry, twenty-five from her son, William H. White, Sixth Michigan Infantry, and three from Henry Stark of Sixth Michigan Infantry, concerning their service in the Civil War.

Letters to Mrs. Sabra Hager discussing personal and family affairs, including mention of neighbors leaving for the Pikes Peak gold rush. 90 letters from her husband, Phineas A. Hager in which he tells of camp life and duties in the army of the Cumberland, the weather, food, sickness, and news of the Otsego men in his regiment. He comments on the death of his stepson, William White, on bushwhackers, slavery and the Southern people, and on the officers in his regiment. He describes the fighting before Atlanta in which action he was killed. Much of each letter is given over to home and business affairs. Also includes 25 letters from William H. White in which he describes camps Fort Wayne and McKim and camp life and duties; ship transportation to other camps such as Ship Island and Baton Rouge; and a Thanksgiving dinner. He tells about food and exchanging food with the natives, picket duty, sickness, and the use of contrabands in camp. He comments on officers and on slavery.

Letters to his wife, Mary Soule, written while serving as an officer in the Union Army during the Civil War; Civil War diary, 1863-1865; a letter from Byron Stoddard of the Sixth Michigan Infantry; correspondence, 1890-1904, with J. C. Leonard who collected materials for University of Michigan Museums throughout the western part of the United States; literary manuscript of Annah May Soule; and photographs.

Portraits and photographs of Soule and his wife, Maryy Soule; group photograph of the officers of Company D, Sixth Michigan Infantry, 1861; and album, ca. 1865, of Civil War soldiers, most of whom were members of the Sixth Michigan Infantry.

Papers of Helen B. Van Tyne and earlier members of the Belfield family. Civil War papers and family correspondence of Henry H. Belfield, founder of the Chicago Manual Training School; and papers, 1944-1971, of Helen Van Tyne, Ann Arbor, Michigan civic leader and member of the citizens advisory council of the Washtenaw County Juvenile Court, concerning her interest in the problem of juvenile delinquency, the Michigan League for Planned Parenthood, the Michigan Council on Women in Business and Industry, and the James Foster Foundation.

The papers of Helen Van Tyne consist of materials relating to two major areas: Mrs. Van Tyne's involvement in various Ann Arbor-area civic organizations from the late 1940s until the late 1960s, and a collection of family papers, photographs, and ephemera, particularly relating to her grandfather, Henry Holmes Belfield (1838-1913). The collection has been divided into three series: Organizational Affiliations, Personal Papers, and Belfield Family Papers.

Collection includes a diary (1862-1864) that contains brief notations of daily activities and maps of military engagements. Also includes some photographic portraits (one colored) and correspondence.