civil war

  • "Memorandum," from Maury Family Papers
    November 11, 2020
    When I arrived at the Special Collections Research Center this past July 29th for my first day of research into William & Mary’s collection of Maury Family Papers, I felt in my bones that I was in store for a fascinating week of discovery. My hunch proved true.
  • January 17, 2018
    On the night of Sunday October 16, 1859, twenty-three men emerged from the woods surrounding the town of Harpers Ferry, which sits at the confluence of the Potomac and Shenandoah Rivers in present-day West Virginia. Armed with rifles and pikes, their mission was to successfully secure the large cache of weapons kept in the town’s armory and expel the U.S. military from the area.
  • November 13, 2017
    This past spring Sharon Summers, Charles W. Scandrett, Janet S. Hunt, Barbara J. Kaufman, and Sandra S. Ellender generously donated the Civil War diary of Henry Alexander Scandrett to the Special Collections Research Center. Scandrett fought for the Union during the war and recorded his experiences in the pocket diary.
  • September 27, 2017
    In reviewing boxes labeled as “unprocessed ephemera,” a colleague and I came across something really cool.  It is a tiny image of Abraham Lincoln framed in copper.
  • September 8, 2016
    While his family was busy with operating the Eastern State Hospital in Williamsburg, Norfolk-born Alexander Galt, Jr. (1827-1863) possessed artistic aspirations.
  • November 24, 2014
    On October 19, 2014 at Dinwi
  • October 11, 2014
  • January 7, 2014
    As we start the new year, let's take a look back
  • October 29, 2013
  • April 20, 2012
    In my current project at Swem Library's Special Collections Research Center (SCRC), I have been working on checking the transcriptions that have been uploaded by our transcription volunteers.  Although I am not currently working on a particular collection, checking transcriptions of letters written during the Civil War is an incredibly rewarding experience.  As I go through the di