Restrictions to Access

No restrictions. Open for research.

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 Susanna Gordon Waddell Diary #2383-z, Southern Historical Collection, The Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Alternate Form of Material

Typed transcription available.

All or part of this collection is available on microfilm from University Publications of America as part of Southern women and their families in the 19th century, Series A.

Acquisitions Information

Received from Louisa C. Blair of Richmond, Va., in October 1941.

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.

Processed by: Rebecca Hollingsworth, November 1991

Encoded by: ByteManagers Inc., 2008

This collection was rehoused under the sponsorship of a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities, Office of Preservation, Washington, D.C., 1990-1992.

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.

• Diaries (Blank-books)
• Family--West Virginia--Social life and customs.
• Monroe County (W. Va.)--History--19th century.
• Recipes--West Virginia--History--19th century.
• United States--History--Civil War, 1861-1865--Personal narratives.
• United States--History--Civil War, 1861-1865--Women.
• Waddell, Susanna Gordon, b. 1824.
• West Virginia--History--Civil War, 1861-1865.
• Women--West Virginia--Diaries.

Susanna Gordon was born in Richmond, Va., in 1824 and married Dr. James Alexander Waddell in 1844. During the Civil War, she and her husband lived in Union, W.Va.

Susanna Waddell kept her diary in two penmanship exercise books; the first volume (28 pp.) contains entries from 8 February 1863 to 15 December 1863, and the second (32 pp.) contains entries from 16 December 1863 to 4 November 1865. In the second volume, there is also one entry for May 1866 and poems dated 11 June 1866 and 17 March 1867. Also included in both volumes are several undated poems, most apparently by Waddell and a few attributed to other people.

Entries mainly concern daily life in Union and the activities of Susanna Waddell's relatives and friends, including the family of Confederate General John Echols. There is extensive discussion of military activities in the Monroe County area, including Union General William Woods Averell's raid on Lewisburg, W.Va., 1-8 November 1863; also mentioned are the activities of General Echols and other Union raids led by generals W. W. Averell, David Hunter, and George Crook.

A typed transcription is also available.