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The Douglas MacArthur collection is made up of military documents related to General Douglas MacArthur and the 42nd (Rainbow) Division during the first World War, and miscellaneous letters, documents, photographs, published works, and one diary illuminating various aspects of the General's public career and personal life.

The MacArthur collection contains 885 letters, documents, photographs, and published works dating from March 23, 1885, to July 5, 1983. The bulk of the material (710 items) consists of military documents and manuscript notes from September 8, 1917 to January 27, 1919.

The military materials include general orders, field orders, field messages, memoranda, intelligence, and communications, related to the U.S. 42nd Division (The Rainbow Division), A.E.F., founded in 1917. The majority of the collection falls during the period of time from late 1917 to early August 1918, when Douglas MacArthur was Chief of Staff for the 42nd Division. Documents from military units that fought alongside the 42nd Division (both French and American), the U.S. Chemical Warfare, and the Intelligence Divisions -- as well as various German, French, and American communications -- are included. Organizational documents, such as training schedules, and march tables, are also present. A considerable number, if not all, of these materials must have been approved or viewed by MacArthur, and many of the items in this collection bear his initials or the initials of his information assistant, William Hughes, Jr. From early August 1918 until the armistice was signed on November 11, 1918, MacArthur acted as the commanding officer for the 84th Infantry Brigade, and several military orders bear his name.

Seventy-six letters in the collection (located in Box 1) are either from Douglas MacArthur or pertain in some way to him. Six of these items, dated 1904, pertain to MacArthur and Florence Adams, whom he met in the Philippines, including a 46-page diary MacArthur wrote to Adams while he was on board a ship from Manila to the United States. Five letters, dated 1921 and 1925, are written by MacArthur to Louise Brooks who became Mrs. Douglas MacArthur in 1922. These letters contain both romantic content as well as personal reflections on the events in MacArthur's life at the time. Also included are nine letters from MacArthur to Hamilton Fish, Jr., dated 1921-1934. The remainder of the correspondence is a miscellaneous collection of letters written by Douglas MacArthur, Jean MacArthur, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Harry S. Truman, and others.

The Douglas MacArthur collection also contains a notebook kept by Kenneth A. Sutherland, veteran of the 42nd Division, which contains a selection of items related to the Division's post-war activities and reunions; 40 aerial photographs and negatives taken by the 91st Reconnaissance Squadron, October 10, 1918; several photographs of Douglas MacArthur; thirteen published works by or about the General; and other miscellaneous materials.

Virtually all of Henry Pippitt's surviving Civil War correspondence consists of letters addressed to his mother, Rebecca, documenting two intertwining themes: the Petersburg Campaign from start to finish, and Pippitt's personal campaign to keep himself and his family in good order.Pippitt's letters offer commentary on the last year of the war as seen through the eyes of a young working class man, grown up far beyond his years.

Virtually all of Henry Pippitt's surviving Civil War correspondence consists of letters addressed to his mother, Rebecca, documenting two intertwining themes: the Petersburg Campaign from start to finish, and Pippitt's personal campaign to keep himself and his family in good order. Well written, if not particularly polished, Pippitt's letters offer fine commentary on the last year of the war as seen through the eyes of a young working class man, grown up far beyond his years.

Pippitt's personal struggles weave throughout the collection, surfacing at numerous points, and his various ways of dealing with his ragged home life are reflective both of the depth of his difficulties and his resourcefulness. He alternately castigates, cajoles, threatens or ignores his dead beat father, does his best to assuage his mother's depression over losing her son to the army, and her jealousy of the woman he courts, and he does his best to deal with or explain away his financial problems and his own lapses into drink. Throughout all of his experiences, military and personal, Pippitt matures physically, mentally, and emotionally.

Of particular interest is the letter of September 4, 1864, in which Pippitt describes why he is (again) out of cash. After sketching a somewhat fantastic tale of heavy rains, floods, and an entire camp swept away in the deluge, he swears that the story is the truth and not a lie. This and other letters illustrate an interesting dichotomy in Pippitt's character. Having grown up in a lower-class family, he is constantly aware of the shortage of money, both in camp and at home, but despite his frequent promises to send home sizable sums, he manages to fritter away most of his pay and at times, dips liberally into the already slender family purse to supply himself with what he calls "necessaries."

In more narrowly military terms, the collection contains several brief, but powerful letters describing the hard life in the Petersburg trenches, skirmishes, and the battles of Petersburg, the Crater, and Cold Harbor. A curious side note is Pippitt's tale of the Confederate defenders of Petersburg under-mining Union forts facing the city following the Crater disaster. The series of letters written from Point of Rocks and Chafin's Farm illustrate not only the constricting stagnation of the siege effort during the winter of 1864-65, but the gradually deteriorating morale of the Confederate forces, seen in a flood tide of deserters.

Finally, Pippitt's use of language is often as interesting as what he says. His use of phrases such as "dead beat" (24:45), "helter skelter" (24:66), "if he don't like it, he can lump it" (24:37), or "let [the landlord] know that you haint a going to be shit on by him" (24:38) seem thoroughly up to date, and are an excellent record of urban, working-class patterns of speech.