Collection (1852-2014) includes correspondence, newspaper clippings, printed materials, and other items compiled by retired East Carolina University English professor emeritus Dr. Ralph Hardee Rives (1930-2016) relating primarily to the Hardee - Rives and related families of North Carolina and the United Kingdom, the history of Eastern North Carolina (especially Halifax County and the town of Enfield), the United Methodist Church in Eastern North Carolina, state and local and national politics, and his charitable and philanthropic interests. The earliest original documents cover the period from 1852 through the Civil War and World War I.
William Davis Brackett's papers relating to his service in eastern North Carolina with E Company of the 45th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment during the Civil War, 1862-1863.
Photocopies of a diary (May 30-Aug. 7, 1862) kept by Alfred F. Williams of the 1st North Carolina Cavalry during the Civil War covering troop movements, his capture, and his exchange. Also includes a general store account record (1865-1867).
Papers (1811-1958) of A. D. Peace and Samuel Peace, and Matt Hankins, relating to Trinity College, North Carolina, Civil War battles at Washington, NC, Rappahannock Bridge, and Kelly's Ford, VA, including of copies, a memoir, clippings, genealogical notes, financial account, Bible records, amateur verse, contract, account of medical services.
Collection (1863-1865) related to the American Civil War and Andrew Giddings of Company E, 3rd North Carolina infantry. Includes Oath of Allegiance to the United States signed by Andrew Giddings on November 6, 1865 [Following the American Civil War, Confederate officials, veterans and prisoners of war were obliged to sign an "oath of allegiance" to regain their civil rights under the U. S. Constitution.]. The collection also includes a note concerning the capture of Washington Rose, a member of Company C, 6th Louisiana Regiment at the Battle of the Wilderness. Most significantly, the collection contains Andrew Giddings' leather-bound diary and ledger of income and expenses, which includes eyewitness accounts of the engagements in which he participated, including Gettysburg, Cold Harbor, Sharpsburg, Malvern Hill, 2nd Winchester, Chancellorsville, and Wilderness. It also includes descriptions of his capture and imprisonment in a Union prisoner of war camp. The collection also includes an envelope that held the diary with "Granddad Giddings Diary" written on it.
Papers (1819-1872) of Thomas Sparrow (1819-1884), a Washington, N.C., lawyer until the outbreak of the Civil War. He was commissioned a captain in the Confederate Army in 1861 and served at Fort Hatteras until he was taken prisoner by Union forces in August of that year. After the war he returned to Washington and represented Beaufort County in the North Carolina General Assembly in 1870 and 1881. Papers include correspondence, military papers, prisoner of war diary kept at Fort Warren, Massachusetts, articles, essays, speeches, accounts, clippings, genealogical notes, and Sparrow family Bible records. Also included are letters (1858-1881) written by Thomas Sparrow's son George Attmore Sparrow (1845-1922) to him describing life in Okaw/Arcola, Illinois, at Hillsborough Military Academy, in military service as a Confederate soldier, and in his post-war life as a farmer and lawyer and later as a Presbyterian minister.
Papers (1861-1865, undated) of Civil War soldier in the 12th Ohio Battery, consisting of diary, copy, comments, transport discomfort, marriage, doggerel rhymes, clothing bills.
Papers (1860-1928, undated) including correspondence, clippings, diary, account of Kinsey's service before being captured near Charleston, weather conditions, deaths, morale problems, and battle, etc.
Papers (1861-1865) including signature book of prisoners, arrest descriptions. 1 Volume.