Southern History Resources

(updated: 9-4-2009)

George W. Littlefield Southern History Collection

The acquisition of Texas history collections by the University of Texas at Austin dates from the opening of the University in 1883. In addition, the University has a long tradition of collecting printed and manuscript material documenting the history of the American South for states other than Texas.

In 1914, Major George W. Littlefield, a prominent Texas businessman and University regent, donated funds to the University to purchase material “bearing on the History of the South.” A native of Mississippi who had served with Terry’s Texas Rangers during the Civil War, Major Littlefield was concerned about what he felt was the misrepresentation of the Southern cause in American history textbooks. His 1914 bequest established the Littlefield Fund for Southern History, which was strengthened by an additional gift following Littlefield’s death in 1920.

The Littlefield Fund has enabled the University to assemble a major collection on the history of the South to support research, teaching, and publications, including funding Professor Charles W. Ramsdell’s project during the 1930s to microfilm source materials in repositories outside of Texas and initiating in 1937 a project by Louisiana State University Press to publish a ten-volume History of the South.

At Major Littlefield’s direction, Southern materials purchased with Littlefield funds have been “woven into the fabric” of the University’s libraries. In the main, however, Littlefield manuscript materials, maps, newspapers, and rare and fragile books, pamphlets, and serials are housed in the Center for American History’s George W. Littlefield Southern History Collections, where they join manuscript and printed primary resources relating to the history of the South that have been acquired independently of this fund through gift and purchase.

top

---

The following is a selected list of the Southern history resources housed in the Center’s George W. Littlefield Southern History Collections.

1. The Natchez Trace Collection
2. Southern History Archival Collections
3. The Littlefield Rare Book and Pamphlet Collection
4. The Littlefield Map Collection
5. The Southern Newspaper Collection
6. The Charles Ramsdell Microfilm Collection

top

---

A. The Natchez Trace Collection

Assembled by a private collector, the Natchez Trace Collection (NTC) measures more than 450 linear feet of materials documenting the history of the Lower Mississippi River Valley from 1790 to 1900. The collection includes original personal and family papers, financial, business, and legal records, maps, sheet music, newspapers, pamphlets, broadsides, photographs, diaries, and other archival documents of various description. These materials reflect the lives and activities of government officials, politicians, soldiers, bankers, jurists, planters, merchants, attorneys, physicians, clergy, educators, slaves, and homemakers who lived and worked in the parishes and counties of Louisiana and Mississippi, particularly in the region centered around Natchez, Mississippi.

The University of Texas at Austin acquired the Natchez Trace Collection in December 1985 as a combined purchase and gift. Since its acquisition the Center for American History has promoted the collection’s use through staff presentations, publications, exhibitions, and publicity, and through public lectures by scholars who use its resources. Center Director Don E. Carleton lectured on the collection to the Natchez Literary Conference in 1988, a talk published in Natchez before 1830 (University Press of Mississippi, 1989). The Center has also issued a compilation of essays on research areas supported by materials in the Natchez Trace Collection. Edited by Katherine J. Adams and Lewis L. Gould, Inside the Natchez Trace Collection: New Sources for Southern History (Louisiana State University Press, 1999) is designed to facilitate further scholarly exploration. Authors and topics include Katherine J. Adams on women’s history, John Guice on the history of the Natchez District, William G. Shade on politics in the 1830s and 1840s, Morton Rothstein on economic history and elite planters, Shearer Davis Bowman on politics during the 1850s and 1860s, and Randolph B. Campbell on the slave experience.

Selected NTC collections:

Colonial and Territorial Archives, 1759–1810. (2 ft., 6 in.)

Correspondence, land surveys, marriage contracts, legal proceedings, slave sales, wills, ordinances, petitions, civil records for posts at Natchez, Pointe Coupee, Ouachita, Iberville, and Opelousas, and other legal and administrative papers relating to the French and Spanish colonial and Louisiana and Mississippi territorial eras. Includes documents signed by colonial administrators Bernardo de Galvez and Manuel Gayoso de Lemos.

Slaves and Slavery Collection, 1793–1864. (2 ft., 2 in.)

Primarily legal documents relating to Blacks and the institution of slavery in the Southern United States, particularly in Louisiana and Mississippi; organized into 11 series: 1) runaway slaves, 2) free Blacks, 3) individual emancipations, 4) sales of slaves and slave ownership, 5) estates and sale of land, personal property, and slaves, 6) court cases, civil and criminal, 7) entry of slaves into Louisiana, 8) lists of slaves and slave holders, 9) hire of slaves, 10) financial and other papers, 11) guards and pickets passes for colored persons.

Steamboat Collection, 1806–1925. (2 ft., 4 in.)

Receipts, bills, legal records, correspondence, printed materials, and ledgers documenting steamboat activity on the Mississippi river and its tributaries.

Richard Thompson Archer Family Papers, 1790–1919. (5 ft., 4 in.)

Correspondence, financial records, and legal documents to and from Archer, a Virginia native and prominent Mississippi planter and ardent secessionist, and his relatives, friends, and business associates. Papers concern plantation life and economy, agricultural affairs, social life and customs, education, medical practices, household affairs, and slaves and slavery in Mississippi and Virginia. The collection includes some correspondence between Richard Archer and his cousin Branch T. Archer, a leader in the Texas Revolution and a diplomat to the Republic of Texas.

Greenville, Mississippi, Store Ledger, 1825–1828. (2.5 in.)

Ledger of a Greenville, Jefferson County, Mississippi, mercantile store, containing entries for daily sales of dry goods and groceries.

John Dutton Papers, 1789–1890. (1 ft.)

Correspondence, slave lists, financial and legal documents, and public auction records of Judge John Dutton (d. ca. 1849) and other officials of the Parish Court of Iberville in Plaquemine, Louisiana.

Charles Backus Dana Papers, 1802, 1820–1881. (11 in.)

Personal and family correspondence and draft sermons by Dana (1810–1873), New Hampshire native, graduate of Dartmouth College, and Protestant Episcopal rector of Christ Church in Alexandria, Virginia (1861–1866), and Trinity Church in Natchez (1866–1873).

Chamberlain-Hyland-Gould Family Papers, 1805–1886. (8 in.)

Papers of three Mississippi families containing primarily the correspondence of Ellen Marie Wheaton Chamberlain Hyland (1823–1863), daughter of Oakland College president Jeremiah Chamberlain and her uncle, brother, husband, son, daughter, and son-in-law. Documents mainly concern personal and business matters and document daily family life on the Hyland plantation Boque Desha (1848–1886) in Warren County, Mississippi.

Adair Versus Wilkinson Case Records, 1809–1820. (50 items)

Legal documents concerning Adair’s cases against General James Wilkinson, heard in Adams County, Mississippi Territory. Adair charged Wilkinson with false imprisonment after he was attacked in 1807 and shipped to Fort McHenry to serve time on suspicion of conspiracy with Aaron Burr in Louisiana. Forms part of the Natchez Trace Small Manuscript Collections.

Benjamin Leonard Covington Wailes Papers, 1811–1860. (1.5 in.)

Papers of Wailes (1797–1862), a prominent Mississippi educator and historian and son of Levin Wailes concerning the administration of Jefferson College in Washington, Mississippi.

Peregrine P. Sugg Papers, 1847–1877. (1.5 in.)

Diary and papers of Sugg (b. 1815) documenting his activities as a plantation overseer, slave owner, brick-maker, and lumber hauler in Marinouin, Grosse Tete, and Plaquemine in Iberville Parish, Louisiana, and, later, in Rusk, Texas.

William Lewis Sharkey Papers, 1823–1881. (3 in.)

Papers relating primarily to the political activities of Sharkey (1797–1873), a prominent Mississippi lawyer, jurist, and Whig political activist.

James Rowan Percy Obstetrical Case Book, 1857–1859. (.5 in.)

Record of obstetrical cases kept by Percy (d. 1877) while he was a medical student at Charity Hospital in New Orleans; records names and medical particulars for 34 women giving birth.

James Campbell Wilkins Papers, 1801–1852. (3 ft., 9 in.)

Papers documenting the life and career of Wilkins (d. 1849), a Natchez cotton planter, merchant, cotton factor, financier, and banker, especially his partnership in the Wilkins and Linton Company (1816–1834).

Kiger Family Papers, 1820, 1841–1885. (2 ft., 8 in.)

Papers relating to the operation of Buena Vista Plantation, located north of Vicksburg, and to Kiger’s wife, Carrie Kiger, and household affairs.

Crutcher-Shannon Family Papers, 1822–1905. (5 in.)

Papers relating to the family affairs of William and Emily Crutcher and Marmaduke Shannon of Vicksburg, including letters written by William from Civil War battlefields and several by Emily giving details of the siege of Vicksburg.

Barnes-Willis Family Papers, 1783–1840. (1 ft., 11 in.)

Papers of bank director Abram Barnes (1785–1830) of Port Gibson, Mississippi; sheriff William Willis (d. ca. 1821) of Concordia Parish, Louisiana; merchant and attorney John B. Willis of Port Gibson and Washington, Mississippi, and other Barnes-Willis family members relating to business affairs, travels, administration of estates, cotton, slaves, and family life.

James N. Brown Papers, 1855–1879. (5 in.)

Records relating to the disposition of the estate of Brown (1807–1859?), a wealthy sugar planter from Iberville Parish, Louisiana, by his son-in-law, including records of Brown’s plantations Manchac (Iberville Parish), Oakland (Plaquemine Parish), Linwood (Ascension Parish), and Magnolia and Highland Place (East Baton Rouge Parish).

George and Josiah Winchester Papers, 1820s–1888. (17 feet)

Personal and business papers documenting the lives and careers of Natchez attorneys and political leaders George Winchester (1793–1851) and his nephew Josiah (d. 1888). A native of Massachusetts, George Winchester moved to Natchez around 1820, where he worked as an attorney and as a judge. An ardent advocate of states-rights and one of the area’s leading Whigs, Winchester served as state senator from 1836 to 1837. Josiah Winchester was an attorney and later a judge in Natchez until his death in 1888. A firm Unionist, he was elected to the Mississippi Secession Convention from Adams County as a pro-Union delegate. The collection contains legal and political correspondence, court case files, probate records, estate inventories, business and financial records, and family letters documenting the legal affairs of planters and businessmen throughout the Lower Mississippi Valley from the 1820s to the 1880s.

Gabriel Tichenor Papers, 1811–1831. (15 feet)

Papers documenting the activities of the head cashier of the Bank of the State of Mississippi, headquartered in Natchez, as well as the economic development of Lower Mississippi River Valley in the early nineteenth century. Contains letterpress copy books, loan records, bank share certificates, powers of attorney, promissory notes, letters of credit, cash draft receipts, abstracts of funds, personal accounts, and correspondence with bank officers and with other banks, including the branch of the 2nd Bank of the U.S. located in New Orleans. Forms part of the Natchez Trace Small Manuscript Collections.

Joseph K. Brown Papers, 1810–1813. (49 items)

Customer accounts documenting the business affairs of Brown, a Jefferson County, Mississippi Territory, blacksmith. Forms part of the Natchez Trace Small Manuscript Collections.

James J. Cowan Family Papers, 1845–1879. (2 in.)

Correspondence, receipts, and accounts documenting the personal and business affairs of the Cowan family of Vicksburg, Mississippi. Materials include James Cowan’s description of his train trip to Washington, D. C., in 1859, letters between Captain Cowan and his family written during Cowan’s service as an artillery commander for the Confederate Army; and correspondence between family members describing the siege of Vicksburg and their lives as war refugees. Forms part of the Natchez Trace Small Manuscript Collections.

Joseph E. Davis Papers, 1824–1880. (.5 in.)

Correspondence, legal documents, plantation records, and estate records documenting the business and personal affairs of Davis, the eldest brother of Jefferson Davis, including an 1838 loan co-signed by Joseph and Jefferson, government documents concerning actions taken by the Freedmen’s Bureau involving Davis’s former slaves and plantations, and a printed petition to President Andrew Johnson requesting a pardon and restoration of Davis’s land. Also included are letters from Davis describing his experiences in the early years of Reconstruction and an 1866 letter from his former slave Ben Montgomery, to whom Davis had sold his Warren County, Mississippi plantation, Hurricane.

Huston Family Papers, 1835–1860. (53 items)

Will, correspondence, receipts, and accounts documenting activities of the families of Eli Huston and his brother Felix, who raised and equipped from the Natchez, Mississippi, area an army of about 500 men which he took to Texas shortly after the Battle of San Jacinto and who later became brigadier general of the Army of the Republic of Texas under Sam Houston. Contains correspondence and financial records of Woodford Place in East Feliciana Parish, Louisiana, and other papers relating to the brothers’ estates. Forms part of the Natchez Trace Small Manuscript Collections.

John Lane Papers, 1821–1855. (121 items)

Cotton records, accounts, deeds, slave bill of sale, correspondence, and legal documents concerning the affairs of John and John A. Lane of Vicksburg, Mississippi. Included among the legal documents are papers relating to the murder trial of the slave Sam, who was charged as an accessory in the killing of his master, Joel Cameron (1832). Forms part of the Natchez Trace Small Manuscript Collections.

Mississippi Woman’s Christian Temperance Union Records, 1891–1893. (14 items)

Minutes, reports, and correspondence documenting the administrative activities of the Mississippi WCTU. Included is a 40-page draft of the minutes for the 1892 state convention in Corinth, committee reports, and an 1893 letter relating the history of the WCTU in Mississippi.

Newspaper Collection.

More than two hundred newspaper titles, with special strengths in the decades before the Civil War for titles and issues from Louisiana and Mississippi towns and cities, including Canton, Jackson, Natchez, Port Gibson, and Vicksburg, Mississippi and for New Orleans, Baton Rouge, Donaldsonville, Plaquemine, and Saint Francisville, Louisiana. All NTC newspapers have been cataloged into OCLC as part of the Center’s NEH-funded Texas Newspaper Project. The collection includes issues of The Louisiana Gazette and Arcadia and La Fourche Advertiser, published in Donaldsonville, Louisiana, in 1831, the only portion of this newspaper known to exist, with the exception of a single issue housed in the Library of Congress.

Pamphlet and Serials Collection.

More than 500 19th-century pamphlets, paperback novels, and periodicals, these imprints constitute the leisure and professional reading of individuals, families, and organizations whose papers are represented in the Natchez Trace Collection. A number of these imprints were written by persons and organizations represented in the collections, including Mississippi politician John A. Quitman, cotton planter Stephen A. Duncan, Episcopal Bishop Charles B. Dana, Natchez attorney George Winchester, Mississippi’s Oakland College, the Vicksburg Athletic Club, and the Planters’ Bank. Imprints include sermons, legal cases, funeral orations, speeches, essays, addresses, tracts, college catalogs, almanacs, literary, religious, and fashion magazines, nursery and seed catalogs, diocesan reports, convention proceedings, and railroad annual reports.

Photograph Collection, ca. 1855–1920.

More than 870 images, 1855–1920, including daguerreotypes, cartes-de-visite portraits, cabinet cards, theater stereographs, lantern slides, and tintypes depicting Natchez and Vicksburg area families and scenes and commercial views. Many images were taken by prominent New Orleans, Vicksburg, and Natchez photographers. This group of photographs is being treated as a single collection. An item-level inventory has been prepared.

Map Collection.

A collection of 50 manuscript maps and 88 printed maps owned or prepared by individuals, families, and organizations represented in NTC. The bulk of the maps depict Louisiana and Mississippi during the nineteenth century, especially prior to 1861. Cartographic types include land surveys and plat maps, atlases, pocket maps and city guides, and specialty maps, such as Civil War battle maps and railroad route maps. These maps constitute documents drawn or consulted by Natchez District residents as a means of delineating property, planning and guiding travels, recording and depicting natural or man-made structures in their physical environment, and studying the history and geography of their locale, region, and country.

Broadside Collection, 1785–1930.

Approximately 140 broadsides and handbills published mainly in Louisiana and Mississippi, 1795–1900, announcing or advertising events and services relating to politics, real estate, law, education, agriculture, and economic and cultural affairs.

Ephemera Collection.

Hundreds of tickets, ballots, advertisements, business cards, menus, programs, invitations, funeral announcements, and dance cards documenting daily life in 19th-century Louisiana and Mississippi.

Sheet Music Collection.

Approximately 4,000 pieces of nineteenth-century sheet music, containing equal amounts of classical and popular music. This sheet music includes music owned and played by individuals and families represented in NTC as well as the sheet music inventory of a Vicksburg music store. The majority of the compositions are of the genre known as parlor music, including selections to honor a historic occasion or prominent individual, an assortment of Civil War songs, plantation songs, minstrel and show tunes, and jubilee songs. In addition to its significant musical content, the sheet music is important for its cover illustrations. Fully half of the covers are decorated with engraved or lithographed illustrations that reflect social history through sentiments expressed, events commemorated, heroes celebrated, and attitudes revealed.

top

---

B. Southern History Archival Collections

Archival and manuscript collections documenting the history of the South. Those marked with a star (*) are available on microfilm through University Publication of America’s Records of Ante-Bellum Southern Plantations, Series G.

For information on Texas plantations, please consult the subject guide “Plantation Resources at the Center for American History.”

Edward A. Parsons Collection, 1678–1928. (6 ft.)

Manuscripts relating to the history of Louisiana assembled by collector Edward A. Parsons and acquired by the University of Texas in 1956. The majority of the collection relates to Louisiana prior to 1830. Highlights include:

• Approximately 30 decrees and orders, 1731–1773, issued by French monarchs Louis XIV and Louis XV on various subjects affecting Louisiana: formation of the Superior Council of Louisiana in 1731; formation and support of a militia for Louisiana’s defense; setting punishments for those failing to publish marriage contracts and other grants in Louisiana, 1733; regulations for naming tutors for minors in the colonies; appointment of a surveyor in chief for Louisiana; and connecting Natchitoches and Louisiana to the military district of St. Louis.
• A letter from Thomas Jefferson to Bernardo de Galvez, 1779, concerning common interests and mutual aid between Spain and the United States along the Mississippi River.
• Letters from Jean Lafitte, 1814–1820 disclaiming acts, knowledge of, or protection for banditry by himself or his family in the Gulf area.
• 34 letters from Robert R. Livingston, 1801–1803, while U.S. minister to France, relating to negotiations that resulted in the Louisiana Purchase.
• 4 booklets detailing the conditions of population and commerce of New Orleans and Spanish Louisiana, 1776.
• A 22-page inventory of the number and value of homes in each neighborhood of New Orleans in order to tax for new lighting, 1795.
• An address, 1805, from the inhabitants of the District of St. Charles to James Wilkinson, the new Governor of Louisiana Territory, expressing hope for the law and order of wise government.
• A series of one letter to Andrew Jackson, 1806, concerning the Burr Conspiracy, and 5 by Jackson, written 1814–1815 from New Orleans, concerning U.S. military intelligence, strategy, and troop movements.
• 34 letters and administrative documents by Baron de Carondelet, 1791–1797, concerning conditions in Louisiana, regulating slaves, issuing passports, and prohibiting “foreign Negroes and creoles” from entering New Orleans.
• 23 letters, 1807–1816, from William Charles Cole Claiborne, Governor of Mississippi Territory; correspondents include James Wilkinson, Jean Lafitte, and Nicholas Girod and Augustus McCarty, mayors of New Orleans.

William Massie Papers, 1797–1919. (15 ft., 10 in.)*

Business records and correspondence documenting three generations of the Massie family of Nelson County, Virginia. Of special interest are the extensive records kept by William Massie on the four plantations and large slave force he owned and managed through 1862. Records document his plantation management, agricultural and technological innovations, finances, crop marketing and plantation provisioning as well as the social life and culture of Virginia planters.

Pugh Family Papers, 1807–1907. (10 ft.)*

Personal and business correspondence, plantation records, diaries, and journals relating to the Pugh family of Louisiana and their plantations Augustin, Whitmell, Highland, Woodlawn, New Hope, and Mount Lawrence.

Dr. Samuel H. Stout Papers, 1860–1865. (22 ft., 4 in.)

Letters, hospital records, and military papers documenting Stout’s career as Confederate Medical Director of Hospitals, Army of Tennessee.

Natchez Children’s Home Archive, 1816–1945.

Minutes, account books, registers, reports, lists, scrapbook, and printed materials documenting the work of the Female Charitable Society of Natchez, organized in 1816 by 74 women, to &quote;give instruction to poor children&quote; in their Natchez Academy, which opened in April for ten children. In 1823 a building to house the orphans was finished that came to be called the Orphan Asylum of Natchez and, later, the Natchez Children’s Home, which still is in operation.

Airlie Plantation Record Book, 1862. (4 items)*

Land deeds, map, and record book with daily entries for work done on the plantation, slave activities, steamboat landings, weather notes by overseers for Airlie Plantation, East Carroll Parish, Louisiana.

Zenas R. Bliss Reminiscences, 1854–1876. (5 vols., typescript)

Memoirs of occupation service in Louisiana, Mississippi, and South Carolina during Reconstruction.

Canebrake Plantation Records, 1856–1858. (3 items)*

Records books for 1856, 1857, and 1858 for the Canebrake Plantation in Adams County, Mississippi, owned by Dr. James G. Carson.

Powhatan Ellis Papers, 1811–1836. (1 ft., 3 in.)

Correspondence and financial records relating to Ellis’s career as attorney, judge, soldier, diplomat, and U.S. Senator from Mississippi.

William E. Moore Papers, 1807–1944. (1 vol., typescript)

Correspondence relating to service with the Shreveport Greys during the Civil War.

William M. Moxley Papers, 1854–1901. (4 in.)

Correspondence, financial and legal records, and military orders relating to the service of Dr. William M. Moxley of Bullock, Alabama, in the Civil War.

H. H. Parker Papers, 1837–1879. (1 vol.)

Letters relating to Dr. Parker’s life as a Mississippi planter and physician during the Civil War.

James Kirkpatrick Diary, 1861–1864. (1 vol.)

Diary of a Mississippi planter, teacher, and soldier.

Joshua K. Callaway Papers, 1862–1863. (84 letters)

Letters written by Lt. Callaway, 28th Alabama Regiment, Army of the Tennessee, to his wife Dulcinea Baker Callaway at Summerfield, Alabama, concerning his Civil War experiences.

Richard I. Stone Diaries, 1861–1865. (2 vols.)

Diaries recording the service and experiences of Richard I. Stone in Arkansas and Louisiana during the Civil War.

William Adolphus Smith Papers, 1862–1877. (5 in.)

Letters written by Smith to his girlfriend, then wife, during his years of service as 2nd Lieutenant, 50th Regiment, Virginia Infantry, during the Civil War, including his confinement in a convalescent home in Delaware late in the war.

William H. Morrow Collection

A collection of manuscripts, books, pamphlets, newspapers, maps, prints, photographs, and art relating to Texas and the South assembled by longtime collector William H. Morrow of Texas and Mississippi. Holdings include:

• General John A. Quitman Portrait

Original oil portrait of General John Anthony Quitman, ca. 1850, artist unknown. The painting is reputed to have hung in the Natchez Opera House where at the time Natchez fell to Union troops a Union soldier pierced the painting at the figure’s chest with his saber.

• Jefferson, Thomas. A Manual of Parliamentary Practice for the Use of the Senate of the United States. 3rd ed., 1813. John A. Quitman copy, containing his autograph.
• The Natchez, January 1, 1830–December 25, 1830.

Fifty-two issues of this Mississippi newspaper, published by James H. Cook. The paper was a powerful Whig voice in the state.

• United States Military Prison Record Book

Record book documenting the conduct and disposition of persons in occupied Natchez during the Civil War, Aug. 17, 1863–Sept. 26, 1864. Entries detail Federal soldiers confined, Confederate deserters confined, prisoners of war confined, and citizens confined, with rank, company, regiment, offense, sentence, date of release given.

• John S. Thrasher Manuscript

A View of the Spanish Army in Cuba, compiled for General John A. Quitman, New Orleans, June 1854. A 12-page mss. report by Jose Maria Hernandez on the Spanish Army in Cuba. Thrasher, at one time Quitman’s personal secretary, translated the report from the Spanish.

• Confederate Cotton Trade Collection

Manuscript ledger leaves documenting the sale of Confederate cotton in England and France, 1861–1862.

• Stratton, Rev. J. B. The Duty of Alms-Giving. A Sermon Delivered in the Presbyterian Church, Natchez . . . on January 17, 1847. Vidalia, Louisiana: Printed at the Office of the Concordia Intelligencer, 1847.
• Toulmin, H. The Magistrates’ Assistant . . . Compiled for Use of the Justices of the Peace, in the Mississippi Territory. . .Natchez: Samuel Terrell, 1807.

• M’Cormick, C. N., ed. Natchez, Mississippi on Top, Not “Under the Hill.” Adams County and the Neighboring Territory. The Queen City of the South, Natchez, Mississippi On Top. Natchez: Daily Democrat Steam Print, 1887.
• Natchez Daily Courier, Carrier’s Address to the Patrons of the Natchez Daily Courier, January 1, 1866. Natchez: 1865.
• Subscribers’ agreement to form as association for “the purpose improving the breed of Horses, Cattle, Sheep & Hogs. . . .” Natchez, Mississippi, January 1, 1856. Signed by 36 subscribers.
• Mississippi Republican, Natchez, November 20, 1816.
• Natchez Extra Courier. War Edition, July 9, 1861.
• Duff, J. Traveler’s Guide. A Map of the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers. Extending from Pittsburgh to the Gulf of Mexico. Cincinnati: George Conclin, 1835.
• Texas Confederate Broadside Verses

Examples of broadside ballads and verses, a genre of imprint popular ding the Civil War when issues and events promoted the publication of poetry, verse, and doggerel, often set to familiar tunes.

top

---

C. The Littlefield Rare Book and Pamphlet Collection

An estimated 30,000 unique, rare, or scarce printed titles, including books, pamphlets, atlases, government documents, songsheets, broadsides, and serials and periodicals relating to the history of the South purchased since 1914 by the Littlefield Fund. Imprints include sermons, legal cases, funeral orations, speeches, essays, addresses, tracts, college catalogs, almanacs, literary, religious, and fashion magazines, nursery and seed catalogs, diocesan reports, convention proceedings, fiction, poetry, essays, memoirs, diaries, journals, and biographies. The main strength of the collection is the history, politics, and biography of the region, with special emphasis on slavery and abolition, the Confederacy, and the Civil War. Other topics covered in depth include religion, the cotton economy, transportation, medicine, and law.

top

---

D. The Littlefield Map Collection

Approximately 500 printed maps, 1775–1960, largely depicting southern states and regions. The bulk of the collection is 19th-century maps, with special strengths for Arkansas, Louisiana, and Mississippi from the 1820s to 1880s.

top

---

E. The Southern Newspaper Collection

Several hundred linear feet of newspapers published in every state of the Confederacy from the 1790s through the early 1900s. Significant holdings include extensive runs of early newspapers in hard copy from Charleston, South Carolina (1795–1942), Augusta Georgia (1806–1885), New Orleans, Louisiana (1837–1914), and Little Rock, Arkansas (1819–1863). Many issues are scarce or rare, including the copies of several important antebellum Louisiana and Mississippi newspapers. All titles have been cataloged onto OCLC as part of the U.S. Newspaper project.

top

---

F. The Charles Ramsdell Microfilm Collection

399 reels of microfilmed records of Confederate bureaucracy, soldiers, and politicians as well as miscellaneous material relating to the general history of the antebellum, Civil War, and Reconstruction eras in the South, Named for the former University of Texas history professor and specialist in the history of the South, the Ramsdell Collection is the result of a project sponsored by the Littlefield Fund from 1937 to 1940 that filmed printed and manuscript materials on Southern history housed in archival repository outside of Texas; these included Yale, the Massachusetts Historical Society, the Library of Congress, Duke, the Mississippi State Department of Archives and History, and the Illinois State Historical Society. Holdings include the Nathaniel P. Banks Papers, Mississippi Territorial Papers, Orleans Territorial Papers, Confederate Blockade Runners Collection, Confederate States Congress Register of Acts and Resolutions Passed, Jefferson Davis Papers, John A. Quitman Papers, J. F. H. Claiborne Papers, Indigent Families of Alabama Soldiers Papers, Alexander F. Pugh Diary, and the Mississippi Governors Papers, 1861–1865.

top