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Carr-Stearns family of Whitehall, Muskegon County, Michigan, and Ypsilanti, Washtenaw County, Michigan; family correspondence, including Civil War materials.

The collection includes letters, diaries, and a memoir of Ezra Stearns relating to his Civil War service. There are also letters and other miscellanea of Marvin S. Carr written while a student at Michigan State Normal College, Ypsilanti, and later as a cadet at the United States School of Military Aeronautics at Champaign, Ill., Dallas, Texas, and Mount Clemens, Michigan during World War I. The photographs in the collection are of the family farm, with some high school photographs made in Whitehall public schools.

The Stearns collection consists of 45 letters written by Ezra Stearns to his sister, Ellen M. Brewer while he served as a private soldier in the 1st Michigan Engineers, plus two letters from his brother, Edwin (a private in the 20th Michigan Infantry), and 10 post-war letters from Stearns' wife, Mary, all written to Ellen. Ezra Stearns' letters document aspects of camp life, particularly his culinary activities as a military cook, including recipes of several dishes.

The Stearns collection consists of 45 letters written by Ezra Stearns to his sister, Ellen M. Brewer while he served as a private soldier in the 1st Michigan Engineers, plus two letters from his brother, Edwin (a private in the 20th Michigan Infantry), and 10 post-war letters from Stearns' wife, Mary, all written to Ellen.

Stearns' letters provide an account of service in an important Engineer regiment in Tennessee. While the letters do not include much insight into the engineering activities of the regiment, they are quite useful at documenting aspects of camp life, particularly the culinary activities and tastes of a talented military cook. Stearns relishes in his descriptions of cooking and he provides recipes for biscuits and pork soup, among other dishes. Other interesting letters include one with a description of a guerrilla attack on a train (1863 October 23), some letters with commentary on the recruiting and service of African-American soldiers, and the series of letters written during the Atlanta Campaign.

Finally, among the post-war correspondence are two excellent letters from Ezra's wife, Mary. The first, written from July 29-August 2, 1868, includes a description of settling into a new life on an isolated farm, becoming a "real Mohawk" in their new life in the woods and battling a fire threatening their new home. The second letter, written on October 11th, 1870, provides an account of the malarial infection afflicting Ezra and their young son, Arthur.

Soldier in the 1st Michigan Regiment of Engineers and Mechanics during the Civil War. Collection includes originals, transcripts, and images of letters written by John Kelley Hough as a Union soldier, a family photo, and biographical information.

John Kelley Hough's letters constitute the bulk of the collection. Files include fifteen original letters with transcrips and digitized images of the originals, and one photocopy of a transcript and its digital image. The Hough Family series includes biographical information about the Hough family and a digital image of a family photo dated 1897 with information about the people depicted on the photograph. Also, a list of family members that are mentioned in John Hough's letters.

Papers document Poe's military schooling and Civil War engineering work mostly with correspondence, military orders, reports, maps, and sketches.

Poe’s papers document his military schooling and Civil War work. Correspondence, orders, reports, muster rolls, and maps document both his engineering work and that of the engineers and mechanics he commanded. Correspondence and reports from November and December1864 and early 1865 detail the work of Poe’s engineers in the destruction of Atlanta and Savannah, Georgia, which they razed and destroyed on General William T. Sherman’s orders. Poe invented a battering ram on a chain attached to a large sawhorse with which the army destroyed brick buildings. Poe’s engineers were also responsible for the wholesale destruction of local railroads and buildings, which were used by Confederates to fight Union forces. His men also built fortifications. There are numerous correspondence (reports) and morning reports from the First Regiment Michigan Engineers and Mechanics, and muster rolls of the Engineer Battalion Twenty-third Army Corps. An 1851 receipt is signed by U.S. Grant. Undated materials found originally within dated correspondence and report folders were retained within those folders. The collection is organized by size, alphabetically by topic, and chronologically. The physical state of items in the collection varies widely from good to bad. Many items are faded, fragile, soiled, acidic, and the majority of the oversized materials are in multiple pieces with edge damage, extremely acidic, and brittle.

Researchers may be interested in knowing that the collection has a set of item-level index cards. Also, part of the Correspondence, March-December 1863, has been microfilmed (See Micro Accession # 429). The bulk of Poe’s papers are housed in the Library of Congress, see finding aid at http://rs5.loc.gov/service/mss/eadxmlmss.old/eadpdfmss/uploaded_pdf/ead_pdf_batch_17_July_2009/ms008037.pdf. Also, the University of Louisville Kentucky Special Collections has Poe images and maps, see https://archivescatalog.library.louisville.edu/repositories/2/accessions/6224.