Item Details
Letters of John Herbert Claiborne [manuscript] 1864-1865.
Claiborne, John Herbert,
- Format
- Manuscript
- Description
- 41 items.
- Variant title
- John Herbert Claiborne letters
- Summary
- Letters, April 1864-April 1865, of John Herbert Claiborne, Petersburg, Va., to his wife, Sarah Alston Claiborne, a refugee in Louisburg, N.C., concern the siege of Petersburg and his work as a military surgeon and executive officer in charge of military hospitals in Petersburg.Topics include Union attacks on Petersburg, City Point and surrounding roads; Union shelling; Battles of the Crater, Drewry's Bluff, and Hatcher's Run; Confederate troop movements; attack on Fort Stedman; comments on Lee, Grant, and various Confederate generals; war news and rumors; Union Afro-American troops; and his capture after evacuating Petersburg.Also the treatment of wounded on field and in the hospitals; evacuation of hospitals because of shelling; disparity between poor and wealthy soldiers; comparison of pay and recruitment of army chaplains to that of privates; and his refusal to let a ball be held at a military hospital.Also a description of civilian life in Petersburg and the effects of shelling; plundering of homes and forced removal from parts of the city; a bomb proof in neighbor's garden and a woman selling fabric for 35 dollars a yard; burden of supporting family slaves during the siege and the eventual freeing of some; impressment of male slaves; and his opinion on slavery.Also family and personal matters, his view of his marriage, religious ponderings, advice on wife's plans to support herself by teaching, and a description of trip back to Petersburg by train and his assistance of a refugee and her child; and newspaper clippings.Explanatory notes are included.
- Cite as
- Letters of John Herbert Claiborne, 1864-1865, Accession #3633, Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Va.
- Other forms
- Also available in typescript transcripts.
- Biographical note
- Surgeon on the general medical staff of the Confederate Army and executive officer in charge of all military hospitals at Petersburg, Va., and a prominent physician of Petersburg, Va.
- Technical details
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