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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 William Henry Tripp and Araminta Guilford Tripp Papers #4551, Southern Historical Collection, The Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Acquisitions Information

Received from Mrs. E. C. Wright of Ruffin, N.C., and Mrs. Paul Tate Junior, of Mobile, Ala., in April 1990, July 1991, October 1992, and April 1994 (Accession # 94052).

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.

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Updated by: Kathryn Michaelis, February 2010

Updated by: Laura Hart, June 2021

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.

• Advertising--History--19th century.
• Agriculture--North Carolina--History--19th century.
• Beaufort County (N.C.)--History--19th century.
• Confederate States of America--Social conditions.
• Confederate States of America. Army--Military life.
• Confederate States of America. Army--Officers--Correspondence.
• Confederate States of America. Army. North Carolina Infantry Regiment, 40th. Company B.
• Diaries (Blank-books)
• Families--North Carolina--Social life and customs.
• Fort Alexander (N.C.)
• Fort Fisher (N.C.)
• Fort Holmes (N.C.)
• North Carolina--History--Civil War, 1861-1865.
• North Carolina--Politics and government--1861-1865.
• Slave bills of sale--North Carolina.
• Slavery--North Carolina.
• Soldiers--Confederate States of America--Correspondence.
• Tripp family.
• Tripp, Araminta Guilford, 1833-1897.
• Tripp, William Henry, 1820-1881.
• United States--History--Civil War, 1861-1865--Blockades.
• Whig Party (N.C.)
• Women--Employment--North Carolina--History--19th century.
• Women--North Carolina--Diaries.
• Women--North Carolina--Social life and customs.

The Tripp family appears to have settled in eastern North Carolina in the early 1700s. William Henry and Araminta Guilford Tripp, who married in 1853, farmed at Mount Hope farm on the Pamlico River near Durham's Creek (sometimes called New Durham's Creek) in Beaufort County. Corn seems to have been their chief cash crop. They also raised hogs and other animals for their own consumption and to feed the people they enslaved. The Tripps had ten children: Josephus, born 1852; Lavinia, born 1855; Benjamin, born 1857; Rebecca, born 1859; Thomas, born 1861; Grace, born 1865; Eliza, born 1867; Guy, born 1870; Edwin, born 1873; and Mary, born 1877.

William served in the North Carolina legislature during the 1850s and also with the North Carolina militia. He volunteered for military service in September, 1861, and was commissioned a captain in the Confederate Army. He commanded Company B (Artillery) of the 40th North Carolina Regiment. William and his men were stationed at Fort Fisher, which guarded the vital port at Wilmington, April 1862-January 1864; at Fort Holmes on Smith Island, where William commanded the entire seaward side of the island, February 1864-January 1865; and, for a short time in early 1865, at Fort Anderson on the Cape Fear River. From Fort Holmes, they journeyed down the coast to help in the defense of Charleston, South Carolina, and Savannah, Georgia. William resigned his commission in late January 1865, his letter of resignation stating that he had served since September 1861, was now 45 years of age, and had a large family "with no white male above the age of eleven." (William enslaved or trafficked between ten and fifteen people.)

While William was in the army, Araminta supervised the farm. Araminta's role was a point of anxiety for both William and herself--it seems that she was unhappy with the work and frustrated by her inexperience. William, for his part, sent detailed instructions to her on how to manage farm business. Both of them considered the arrangement to be a necessary but very unpleasant response to wartime conditions.

After the war, William returned to Durham's Creek. His last employment seems to have been as an enumerator for the 1880 United States census. He died in 1881. Araminta carried on alone for another sixteen years, dying in 1897.

Of primary interest in this collection is the wartime correspondence between William Henry Tripp, captain in the Confederate Army and commander of Company B of the 40th North Carolina Regiment, and his wife, who supervised the family farm in her husband's absence. The great majority of letters are from William to Araminta, probably because of William's practicing of destroying Araminta's letters, which, while precious to him, would have given too much family and strategic information to the enemy had he been captured. While the collection offers a somewhat one-sided view of the dialogue between husband and wife, William was a careful writer with great powers of description, so it is often possible to derive a fairly clear picture of what was going on at home by reading only his end of the conversation. His descriptive abilities and great honesty also make his letters a compelling record of the daily routines, stresses, and combat experience of an important Confederate fort. He spent a fair amount of time discussing the merits and faults of those he supervised and those who supervised him. He also indulged in a bit of soul searching, assessing his reactions to deserters and shirkers and attempting to evaluate his fears of being a coward.

William wrote of camp life, battles he witnessed or heard about, the comings and goings of officers and men, and the Confederacy's chances for victory and, later, survival. The waxing and waning of Confederate aspirations is evident in his letters. In a letter of 12 May 1862, he wrote, "You must give my best regards to all my negroes. Tell them to take care of what I have and it will be a crown of glory to them and when I come home each one shall have a nice present." By 12 November 1864, Confederate prospects had worsened considerably: "[I]n my judgement slavery is dead as a last year's caught herring. It makes no difference how this war ends or when it ends slavery is dead and we had as well prepare for it at once."

Additionally, William wrote about his mental and physical health, his love for Araminta and their children, and, given his survival, his hopes for the future. The few letters from Araminta to William largely pertain to family life.

There are several letters (circa 1861-62) from Araminta's brother, Felix N. Guilford, addressed to her. Araminta's cousin Fenner Guilford is also represented by a few letters. Of the small number of pre-war letters, some relate to North Carolina politics. Post-war letters are almost exclusively family correspondence and chiefly reflect the efforts of family members to open or re-open channels of communication with other family members.

Also included is a group of financial materials, chiefly accounting sheets; a slightly smaller group of legal materials, primarily deeds and indentures; and some miscellaneous items. There is one diary of Araminta, 1857-1858, and three of William, 1854-1860.

• Microfilm reel (M-4551/1)