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The Henry Benton Austin collection contains letters that Austin wrote to a woman named "Hettie" and a manuscript map depicting the Battle of Ball's Bluff. Austin commented on his experiences while serving in the Union Army during the Civil War and expressed his displeasure with a transient lifestyle.

The Henry Benton Austin collection contains 3 letters that Austin wrote to a woman named "Hettie" and a manuscript map depicting the Battle of Ball's Bluff. The map, drawn with ink and pencil, shows geographic landmarks such as the Potomac River and the road to Leesburg, Virginia, as well as picket lines, battery positions, and the Confederate Army's furthest point of advancement ([1861]). Two of Austin's letters pertain to his war service (January 26, 1862, and undated). He reflected on the Battle of Ball's Bluff, which he referred to as "a day of human butchery," and described a boat carrying wounded soldiers. Austin reported that his unit had been equipped with Enfield rifles, complained about poor drinking water, and mentioned soldiers' difficulty drilling with heavy uniforms, knapsacks, and cartridge boxes in high heat. In his final letter, also undated and unsigned, Austin discussed his case of the "blues" and dissatisfaction with a "roving wandering kind of life."

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.