Scope and Contents Turner S. Bailey of Epworth, Iowa, enlisted on May 22, 1861 and mustered in June 10, 1861, probably at Dubuque, Iowa in the 3rd Iowa Infantry, Company A. They left the state of Iowa on June 29 and spent the rest of 1861 in moving around the state of Missouri, engaging in skirmishes at Hannibal, Macon City, Chilicothe, Brookfield, and Kirksville, among others.Bailey apparently served as chaplain for his unit, but he served in other capacities as well. On March 27 he writes, “I commenced cooking for our mess of fourteen men. Am to receive 35 cent for each man per month.”  It doesn’t appear that he cooked the entire time because there are some entries in which he says, “I cooked tonight,” implying that he wasn’t cooking all the time. He often goes out foraging and brings back beeves, corn, potatoes, and sweet potatoes, among other items. He often leaves camp in the summer months to harvest wild berries. The army also apparently made use of his ability to write because he made out...

Scope and Contents

34th Massachusetts Regiment, Company K. In paper form and digitized on 4 CDs.

Scope and Contents

Declaring the insurrection at an end in certain states of the Union. Questionable signatures of Andrew Johnson and William Stanton, cut from another piece of paper and pasted on.

Scope and Contents

A document stating that Miss Carroll conceived the idea of The Union attacking the south from the Tennessee River rather than the Mississippi River and asking compensation for that. Also requesting compensation for pamphlets she had written for the war effort.

Scope and Contents

26th Iowa Infantry, Company K

Scope and Contents Two diaries were donated to the libraries by Craig C. and Linda D. Grannon under the assumption that both were diaries of Philip Conard. Neither has any legible identifying marks. Upon further examination it looks like the two diaries are by different men. The handwriting is different as are the styles, spelling, and format of the entries. The first, the 1861-1862, is by someone who starts his diary (presumably after the fact) as follows: "Liberty, Union County, Indiana, April 23, 1861. This day I enlisted in a company of volunteers under the command of Capt. T. W. Bennett." Information on Captain Bennett reveals that he was at the Battle of Cheat Mountain, one of the first engagements of the war and the first at which General Robert E. Lee directed an offensive against Brigadier General Joseph Reynolds. This journal is kept in a lined small ledger book, with entries of varying length as the situation demands. The ink in this part of the diary is faded to near illegibility but the...

Scope and Contents

Stating that since Lincoln had declared all slaves free, including those in the Confederacy, that Davis was declaring all free blacks in all states and all their issue in perpetuity to be slaves; and that "the proper condition of the negro is slavery, or a complete subjection to the white man."