Manley Ebenezer Rice papers, 1862-1882, (bulk 1863-1865).

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Rice, Manley Ebenezer, 1833-1922. Manley Ebenezer Rice papers, 1862-1882, (bulk 1863-1865).

Manley Ebenezer Rice papers, 1862-1882, (bulk 1863-1865).

http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/228769856

The largest part of the collection is 57 letters that Manley E. Rice wrote to his wife Elizabeth Jane Day Rice from Camp Randall, (Madison, Wis.), New Orleans (April and May 1864), Brownsville and Fort Brown, Tex. (May-- July 1864), Fort Morgan, Ala. (1864, Augus--October), and Fort Gaines, Ala.(1864, Nov. -- 1865, June). The letters posted at Camp Randall describe the training and drills, (or rather the lack of thereof), veterans of the Vicksburg campaign returning from the battlefield, and former slaves working at the camp. Rice also registered his unhappiness with the state legislators who had failed to appropriate more funds for medical help and his astonishment upon hearing a woman temperance orator, a Mrs. Hobert, "addressing five or six hundred men." The letters then follow Rice's journey from Wisconsin to Texas and Alabama, providing detailed accounts of camp life, his concerns for his family struggling to survive back home, eager anticipations of the "end of this Fratricidal Strife," description of the occupied country, war news, (including the evacuation of Fort Brown, John Salmon Ford's operations at Fort Brownsville in the summer of 1864 and other operations in southern Texas, Farragut's capture of the ironclad ram Tennessee, the Franklin Nashville Campaign, the battle for Mobile, Ala., and the peace negotiations), the Fourth July and the first anniversary of the fall of Vicksburg celebration at Brownsville, and the hospital at Fort Gaines, including former slaves employed there. Rice vividly describes the shock of the news of Lincoln's assassination that found him in New Orleans, noting that there were "several shot for rejoicing over the death of the President" and the shooting was "mostly done by Colored Troops." (He also cited very tangible threats made against Confederate prisoners held at Fort Gaines.) Rice recounts a chase that the federal ships gave to a Confederate ram, the William. H. Webb that was trying to escape to Havana. (Rice who was accompanying hospital patients to New Orleans, was onboard of one of the ships, the Hollyhock). 10 letters that George W. Day wrote to his sister describe the stay at Benton Barracks (1862, Sept. 2), the march to Springfield, Mo. and expedition to Cross Hollows over Boston Mountains (October 17-24, 1862), siege of Vicksburg June 12-July 4), the expedition Yazoo City July (12-21, 1863), Brownsville, Tex., and duty at Navy Cove, near Fort Morgan, Ala., "rafting lumber down the river." Day recounted war news and rumors, his combat experience and camp life, (including his courtship of "a negro girl" in Mississippi whom he intended to marry). Also included are seven letters by Frank Rice from Monticello, Iowa, San Francisco, Placerville, Carson City, (including a description of the 1858 San Francisco as "a City that looks as if it had been asleep for the last fifty years & had just "waked up & every body is a kicking around for his breakfast"); and a few letters by Elizabeth Jane Day Rice, her sisters and in-laws, and other family members. The letters of William Sinks, Rice's brother-in-law, describe his farm in Wellington, Monroe Co., Wis. (He sold his farm in 1865 to move to Missouri).

96 pieces, also, photograph and ephemera.2 boxes.

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