Confederate Memorabilia

I thought you might be interested in some of the items I found in the Rare Book Room while working with a class on the Civil War and Reconstruction.

We have an 1861 copy of Rifle and Light Infantry Tactics

published in Richmond.  Our copy belonged to Lieut. Robert Hall Morrison, son of the first President of Davidson College, and Aide-de-Camp to General D.H. Hill.  Our 1863 copy of an illustrated Manual of Military Surgery

was prepared for the use of the Confederate States Army by order of the surgeon-general.  Used as a field manual, many of the surgical illustrations depict (not surprisingly) diagrams of amputations.

Even during wars, children continue to go to school, and we have copies of two textbooks—Our Own Second Reader,

and Our Own Spelling Book, published in Greensboro, N.C. in 1862.  The reader belonged to Sallie H. Davidson, daughter of Brevard Davidson of Rural Hill in Mecklenburg County, N.C.

 

Children went to school, and families still went to church.  One of two pamphlets in the collection is a copy of an 1862 Thanksgiving Sermon preached in the Presbyterian Church at Six-Mile Creek

in the Lancaster district of South Carolina.  The other is an original printing of the Ordinance of Secession of South Carolina, printed in Charleston in 1860.

 

And elections were held.  Running for election on Wednesday, Nov. 6, 1861 were Jefferson Davis, for President; Alexander H. Stephens, for Vice-President; and for state and local seats, Allen T. Caperton of Monroe and Wood Bouldin of Charlotte.