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This is a finding aid. It is a description of archival material held in the Wilson Library at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Unless otherwise noted, the materials described below are physically available in our reading room, and not digitally available through the World Wide Web. See the Duplication Policy section for more information.
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.
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Collection Overview
| Size | 0.5 feet of linear shelf space (approximately 130 items) |
| Abstract | Letters and a few other items, 1839-1867, chiefly relating to the members of the Scott family of New Hampshire and Vermont. The earliest papers are deeds, 1839 an 1849 copies of 1830 deeds, dealing with property of the Scotts' Warren family relatives in Fairfax and Chittenden counties, Vt. Letters begin in 1857, with those of Rogene A. Scott Bailey (b. 1840), daughter of Hanah Scott Warren, attending a private music school in Burlington, Vt. 1858 letters also relate to Rogene, who was then employed as a teacher in Grayson, Ky. Letters 1859-June 1860 find Rogene teaching on a plantation near Cheneyville, La., and those of August 1960-June 1862 document her teaching in Nashville. During her stay in the South, Rogene wrote frequently about race relations, especially attitudes of slaves and slaveholders towards each other and towards northerners like herself. In 1862, she wrote graphically about her work with wounded soldiers. Letters show that, in 1863, Rogene moved to Hyde Park, Vt., where, with her new husband John Bailey, apparently a Presbyterian minister, and her sister-in- law, Rogene operated a fairly successful school. There are also letters relating to Rogene's brother Don E. Scott, who served with the 11th New Hampshire Volunteers. In letters, 1862-1865, to his mother, sister, and future wife Nancy Smith, Scott described military life and his unit's involvement at the battles of Fredricksburg, Vicksburg, and Petersburg. From March 1863 to January 1867, there are also other letters to Nancy, including one from a friend who assisted freedmen in Wilmington, N.C. |
| Creator | Scott (Family : Bailey, Rogene A. Scott, 1840-1869) |
| Curatorial Unit | University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Library. Southern Historical Collection. |
| Language | English |
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Information For Users
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Processing Information
Processed by: Roslyn Holdzkom, February 1993
Encoded by: ByteManagers Inc., 2008
Updated by: Kathryn Michaelis, January 2010
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.
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Subject Headings
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.
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Scope and Content
Letters and a few other items, 1839-1867, chiefly relating to the members of the Scott family of New Hampshire and Vermont. The earliest papers are deeds, 1839 an 1849 copies of 1830 deeds, dealing with property of the Scotts' Warren family relatives in Fairfax and Chittenden counties, Vt. Letters begin in 1857, with those of Rogene A. Scott Bailey (b. 1840), daughter of Hanah Scott Warren, attending a private music school in Burlington, Vt. 1858 letters also relate to Rogene, who was then employed as a teacher in Grayson, Ky. Letters 1859-June 1860 find Rogene teaching on a plantation near Cheneyville, La., and those of August 1960-June 1862 document her teaching in Nashville. During her stay in the South, Rogene wrote frequently about race relations, especially attitudes of slaves and slaveholders towards each other and towards northerners like herself. In 1862, she wrote graphically about her work with wounded soldiers. Letters show that, in 1863, Rogene moved to Hyde Park, Vt., where, with her new husband John Bailey, apparently a Presbyterian minister, and her sister-in- law, Rogene operated a fairly successful school. There are also letters relating to Rogene's brother Don E. Scott, who served with the 11th New Hampshire Volunteers. In letters, 1862-1865, to his mother, sister, and future wife Nancy Smith, Scott described military life and his unit's involvement at the battles of Fredricksburg, Vicksburg, and Petersburg. From March 1863 to January 1867, there are also other letters to Nancy, including one from a friend who assisted freedmen in Wilmington, N.C.
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Scott Family Papers, 1839-1867.
| Folder 1 |
1839-1849Deeds, 1839 and 1849 copies of 1830 deeds, dealing with property of the Smith's Warren family relatives in Fairfax and Chittenden. |
| Folder 2 |
1857Letters from Rogene Scott at school in Burlington, Vt., to her mother and brother Don. Letters are chiefly about routine family and school affairs. |
| Folder 3 |
1858Letters, chiefly to her mother and brother, from Rogene Scott teaching school and giving private music lessons in Grayson, Carter County, Ky., where she boarded with a Mr. and Mrs. Carter. In her first letter, dated 13 January, Rogene wrote of her sympathy for slave house servants. She also wrote of feeling like the "Eastern Lady" on display and complained of the lack of religious fervor and general laziness among her new acquaintances. By November, she was considering where to go next. |
| Folder 4 |
1859Letters, chiefly to her mother and brother, from Rogene Scott, who in January was en route to a new position in Louisiana. On 20 January, she wrote, "I sometimes get quite afraid of being thus alone in the wide, wide world," but later letters show Rogene as a fairly confident young woman, teaching school at the Tanner plantation in Cheneyville, Rapides Parish, La., and "not sad" that she chose to go South because she had been able to learn from her experiences. Most letters are fairly descriptive of school and social life; many letters discuss Rogene's feelings towards slavery. On 3 April, she wrote, "The Southern people denounce slavery as a curse and are even more conscious of its evils than the North, but they deny the right of the Northern people meddling with what does not in the least concern them." On 29 October, she wrote of the horrors that would follow if efforts to stir slaves to insurrection were successful. |
| Folder 5 |
1860Letters, chiefly to her mother and brother, from Rogene Scott, first in Cheneyville and later in Nashville, Tenn. In her 5 February letter, Rogene explained that the greatest object of her life was "self-culture," followed closely by independence. Rogene sought to pursue this first goal more actively by moving to Nashville around August, where she secured a position in a school where she could learn French. Letters from Nashville chiefly tell of her school and social contacts. There are also a few letters lamenting the difficulties she had in Cheneyville and how she was still hearing unpleasant things about herself from Cheneyville acquaintances. These difficulties were apparently the result of a conversation she had with someone just before she left for Nashville in which she declared that, even after years in the South, she was still an abolitionist. By the end of 1860, Rogene was disturbed by the shadows of war on the horizon and declared, "This is the saddest Christmas." |
| Folder 6 |
1861Letters, chiefly to her mother and brother, from Rogene Scott, many of which deal with national events. On 29 March, she wrote that she felt no immediate personal danger in Nashville, since she had held her tongue on the slavery issue since her arrival. On 7 April, she noted that her twenty-first birthday had occurred the day before, and on 15 April told of the possibility of becoming associate principal in the flourishing school where she worked. In May, there are a letters about "our trouble as a nation," including one on 28 May in which she wrote of rumors of slave rebellions in the Tennessee countryside. |
| Folder 7 |
1862Letters, March to May, from Rogene Scott in Nashville and, September to December, from Don Scott with the 11th New Hampshire Volunteers. Rogene's letters document her work as a nurse. The 18 March letters contains particularly descriptive passages on wounds and on how she was treated by the soldiers she tried to help. On 28 May, Rogene wrote that she was unhappy with her employer and did not wish to stay on at the school. She also wrote of feeling mistrusted as a northerner. On 2 September, Don wrote to his mother from Camp Colby in Concord, N.Y. By 14 October, he was encamped around Pleasant Valley, Va., from which he wrote of being shocked at the profanity used by his fellow soldiers and about the general availability of temptations of all kinds in camp. On 1 November, he told his mother, "Death to me has lost its sting, and would be but a welcome messenger to sever the ties which bind my spirit to this dreary sinful world. In a letter of 16 December, he described his unit's participation in the Battle of Fredricksburg." |
| Folder 8 |
1863Chiefly letters from Rogene Scott Bailey, now married and living in Hyde Park, Vt., and from Don Scott with the 11th New Hampshire Volunteers. Rogene's letters talk almost exclusively about her married life--"I am getting Yankee again--I don't 'reckon' anymore"--and school activities. Rogene, her husband John Bailey, apparently a Presbyterian minister, and her sister-in-law, seem to have operated a fairly successful school. Don's letters show that his unit moved from Virginia to Kentucky to Mississippi, where he participated in the Siege of Vicksburg, and back to Kentucky. There are also a few letters to Nancy Smith, a social worker at Tyler House in New York City, from an ex-soldier in Iowa and from her sister in Ohio. Nancy Smith later married Don Scott. |
| Folder 9 |
1864-1867There are two letters from Rogene during this period: one in 1864 discusses the death of her father, and the other in 1867 is to brother Don about family affairs. Don's letters are chiefly love letters to Nancy Smith from various military camps, mostly in Virginia. There is also a 2 August letter to his mother describing the Battle of Petersburg, Va. There are also a few letters to Nancy Smith, including one in 1864 from a friend working with freedmen in Wilmington, N.C. |