Roll 1 (24 June 1828-16 July 1849) includes letters from Anna Craig Gray re life in Alabama ca. 1830s, Mississippi and Kentucky ca. 1840s, re agriculture, religious activities, and the prevailing political mood of the regions; includes letters, Sept. 1832, from Choctaw Bluffs, Ala., re widespread support for nullification; and letter, 4 Nov. 1835, Green County, Ala., re local belief that slavery would soon be abolished. Also on roll 1, letter, Apr. 1843, re plans by Presbyterian churches in Marshall County, Miss., and elsewhere, to raise money to send a slave family to Africa as missionaries and describing an earthquake on 4 Jan. 1843; other letters discuss American Tract Society and and anti-Catholic sentiments; roll 2 (27 July 1849-15 Mar. 1864) includes letters from W.B. Simpson, Marietta, Ga., including letters, 20 Aug. 1849, re a trip to a religious meeting in Decatur, Ga., and a fair near Stone Mountain. Also on roll 2, letter, Apr. 1854, re trip westward, Simpson's first sight of Mississippi River, and his meeting with "Irish patriots" John Mitchell and Thomas Meagher who requested assistance with their New York newspaper; papers re Elsie Sadler's studies at Reidsville Female High School (Spartanburg District, S.C.), and 1 Oct. 1860, Columbia, S.C., re suicide of S.C. College student John Francis Hughes, of Edgefield, S.C. Majority of roll 2 comprised of Civil War letters of Archibald S. Sadler, J.R. Sadler, and James A. Gray, all of whom served in S.C. Volunteers. A.S. Sadler served in 4th Regt. J.A. Gray served in Co. F, 24th Regt., where he rose from private to rank of 1st lieutenant by Jan. 1864 and was captured, 16 Oct. 1864, at Shipps Gap, Ga.; Gray saw service in South Carolina, Mississippi, and Georgia. J.R. Sadler served in Co. D, Orr's Rifles, and spent much of the war in the Charleston, S.C., area. Roll 3 (2 Apr. 1864-9 Dec. 1900 and undated) includes papers re J.A. Gray's promotion to first lieutenant, Co. F, 24th S.C. Volunteers; letter, 19 Aug. 1864, "In the ditches near Atlanta," re death of Wilber Hardy; letters written by J.A. Gray as prisoner of war at Johnson's Island near Saudusky, Ohio; and discharge papers and oath of allegiance; regimental roster for Co. D, Orr's Rifles, records death of J.R. Sadler, 1864. Post-Civil War items consist chiefly of family and financial papers of A.S. Sadler, J.A. Gray, and other members of the Gray and Sadler families; undated obituary for the Rev. John Hannah Gray, D.D., published in Southern Presbyterian; and genealogical data re the children of David Sadler (b. 1762) and Elsie Sadler (b. 1766) and the children of David Sadler (b. 1812) and Jane Sadler (b. 1813); other correspondents include Presbyterian ministers John McLees and David Humphreys.
