Restrictions to Access

No restrictions. Most of the collection is available on microfilm; papers of William B. Johnston, added in 1997, are not on microfilm.

Copyright Notice

Copyright is retained by the authors of items in these papers, or their descendants, as stipulated by United States copyright law.

Preferred Citation

[Identification of item], in the C. G. Memminger Papers #502, Southern Historical Collection, The Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Provenance

Received from Edward Memminger before 1940 and purchased from Elbie Stiles of Franklin, N.C., in December 1997 (Acc. 97196).

Sensitive Materials Statement

Manuscript collections and archival records may contain materials with sensitive or confidential information that is protected under federal or state right to privacy laws and regulations, the North Carolina Public Records Act (N.C.G.S. § 132 1 et seq.), and Article 7 of the North Carolina State Personnel Act (Privacy of State Employee Personnel Records, N.C.G.S. § 126-22 et seq.). Researchers are advised that the disclosure of certain information pertaining to identifiable living individuals represented in this collection without the consent of those individuals may have legal ramifications (e.g., a cause of action under common law for invasion of privacy may arise if facts concerning an individual's private life are published that would be deemed highly offensive to a reasonable person) for which the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill assumes no responsibility.

The following terms from Library of Congress Subject Headings suggest topics, persons, geography, etc. interspersed through the entire collection; the terms do not usually represent discrete and easily identifiable portions of the collection--such as folders or items.

Clicking on a subject heading below will take you into the University Library's online catalog.

• >Memminger family.
• Confederate States of America. Army--Surgeons.
• Confederate States of America. Dept. of the Treasury--Records and correspondence.
• Europe--Description and travel.
• Flat Rock (N.C.)--History--19th century.
• German Americans--North Carolina--History--19th century.
• Johnston, William B.
• Memminger, C. G. (Christopher Gustavus), 1803-1888.
• Memminger, Thomas B., fl. 1861-1865.
• Reconstruction--South Carolina.
• Secession.
• Tracy family.
• Vacation homes--North Carolina--History--19th century.

• Christopher Gustavus Memminger papers in the David M. Rubenstein Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Duke University.

Christopher Gustavus Memminger was born 9 January 1803, in the town of Nayhinger, Duchy of Wurtemburg, Germany. His father, Gotfried Memminger, was an officer in the Prince Elector's Battalion of Foot Jaegars and was killed in action less that one month after the birth of his only son. His mother, Eberhardina Kohler Memminger, emigrated shortly thereafter with her father's family to Charleston, S.C., where she contracted became ill and died. In 1807, Memminger's grandparents placed him in the Orphan House in Charleston. There he attracted the attention of Thomas Bennett, a wealthy Charlestonian who later became governor of South Carolina. At age eleven, Memminger was taken into the Bennett home on a basis of equality with Bennett's own children. He entered South Carolina College in 1815 at the age of twelve, and was graduated four years later, second in his class. He studied law in the office of Joseph Bennett and, after becoming a naturalized citizen of the United States, was admitted to the bar in 1825. He became a successful attorney and began a long career in state politics, aligning himself with the Unionist group. He served in the state legislature from 1836 until 1860, with the exception of the years 1853 and 1854, and was elected again for one term in 1877. He was a staunch opponent of nullification and a grudging supporter of the Compromise of 1850. In 1860, he was chosen, partly because he was known to be a moderate opposed to secession, to present to Virginia the South Carolina proposals for common defense measures following John Brown's raid on Harper's Ferry. By December of that year, however, he had become a secessionist and was a member of the convention called by the South Carolina legislature for the purpose of enacting an ordinance of secession. Memminger was named to the committee which drafted a statement of the causes which justified the secession. Memminger was named to the committee which drafted a statement of the causes which justified the secession of South Carolina from the Union. He also was a representative from South Carolina to the provisional congress of the seceded states and was the chairman of the committee of that body which drafted the constitution of the Confederate States of America.

In 1861, Memminger became the first Secretary of the Treasury of the Confederacy, holding that difficult position until 14 June 1864, when he resigned and retired to private life at his summer home in Flat Rock, N.C. After the war, he returned to Charleston, applied for and, in 1866, received a presidential pardon, and resumed the practice of law. He became involved in a number of business enterprises, including a sulfuric acid and super-phosphate plant and the Spartanburg and Asheville Railroad Company. He continued his service to public schools, which had its beginnings in 1834 when he was first named to the Board of Free School Commissioners of Charleston. Memminger was characterized in his own lifetime as the founder of the public school system of Charleston and has since been recognized for his influence upon the public school system of the entire state.

Biographical Note is taken from Guide to the Microfilm Edition of the Christopher G. Memminger Papers. Southern Historical Collection: 1966.

The early material in the Christopher Gustavus Memminger Papers includes copies of letters from the European branch of the Memminger family, which bear upon the ancestry of Christopher G. Memminger and letters written by Memminger to his wife while he traveled in Europe in 1854.

Materials concerned with political affairs are quite limited prior to 1858 and do not become common until early 1860. A considerable correspondence concerning the Memminger mission to Virginia in January 1860 is supplemented by a number of undated notes in Memminger's handwriting on this subject. There is some discussion of the election of 1860 and of the sentiment in Virginia and the Carolinas concerning disunion. For the period during which Memminger served as Secretary of the Treasury of the Confederate States of America, there are a number of official reports to the Confederate Congress, as well as some of the official correspondence of the Secretary with other officials, particularly to William B. Johnston of Georgia. Most of the material in this period is concerned with the fiscal affairs of the Confederacy. In the period immediately after the war, there are materials relating to Reconstruction in South Carolina, to Memminger's ideas concerning the solution of the problems posed by the presence of great numbers of former slaves in the South, and to Memminger's pardon.

For the years after 1870, the papers are scanty, but contain some material concerning the Spartanburg and Asheville Railroad Company and Memminger's law practice, as well as some relating to the memorial erected to him in Charleston shortly before his death in recognition of his work as a pioneer in public education. Finally, there is a one-volume account book concerned primarily with the expenses of the summer home, Rock Hill, at Flat Rock, N.C.

Also included in the collection are the papers of Thomas B. Memminger, son of Christopher G. Memminger, consisting largely of orders and memoranda connected with his post as a surgeon in the Confederate Army. There are also a few personal papers of the Tracy family of Georgia.

Collection Overview is taken from Guide to the Microfilm Edition of the Christopher G. Memminger Papers. Southern Historical Collection: 1966.

Oversize papers XOPF-502/1, OPF-502/1b