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Funding from the Watson-Brown Foundation, Inc., supported the encoding of this finding aid; Acc. 100902 was processed with support from Elizabeth Moore Ruffin.
Size | 7.5 feet of linear shelf space (approximately 6,000 items) |
Abstract | William Porcher Miles (1822-1899) was a South Carolina educator, mayor of Charleston, S.C. (1855-1857), United States Representative (1857-1860), member of the Confederate House of Representatives and chair of its Military Affairs Committee. After the Civil War, he was a planter in Virginia, then president of South Carolina College, then a planter again, this time in Louisiana. Miles married Betty Bierne (d. 1874), the daughter of Oliver Bierne, a wealthy Virginia and Louisiana planter, in 1863. The collection consists of personal, political, and military correspondence; diaries; and a few business papers and clippings of William Porcher Miles. Correspondence with many leading political, military, and intellectual figures of the day discusses slavery and runaway slaves, Jews in Charleston, secession, foreign relations, patronage appointments, appropriations, financial and military preparations for war, defense of coastal and inland South Carolina, Reconstruction economic and social conditions in Charleston, S.C., and perceived effects of citizenship and wages on freedmen. Also included are materials relating to Miles and Warley family, friends, and social activities; Miles's work at the College of Charleston; the 1855 yellow fever epidemic in Norfolk, Va.; improvements to the Charleston port, customs house, post office, canals, and statuary; Miles's management of Oak Grove Plantation, Nelson County, Va., and Houmas Plantation, Ascension Parish, La.; his involvement in state and local Democratic Party politics in Louisiana, especially with regard to the lottery, sugar tariff, and sugar bounty; and flood control and levees in the lower Mississippi. The diaries, 1867-1897, contain brief but regular entries and give a general picture of Miles's way of life, indebtedness, political and religious beliefs, and personal relations while running the Oak Grove and Houmas plantations and as college president at Columbia, S.C. Also documented is the 1874 death of Betty Bierne Miles in childbirth. The April 2008 addition consists of a letter, 19 February 1864, written by William Porcher Miles to South Carolina Governor Milledge L. Bonham, concerning use of the blockade runner Alice of Bee and Company to export South Carolina's cotton and his hope for a reform of the Confederate government's control over blockade running. |
Creator | Miles, William Porcher, 1822-1899. |
Curatorial Unit | University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Library. Southern Historical Collection. |
Language | English |
Processed by: SHC Staff, 1965-1973
Encoded by: Nancy Kaiser, September 2005
Funding from the Watson-Brown Foundation, Inc., supported the encoding of this finding aid.
Acc. 100902 was processed with support from Elizabeth Moore Ruffin.
Diacritics and other special characters have been omitted from this finding aid to facilitate keyword searching in web browsers.
Back to TopThe 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.
William Porcher Miles was born 4 July 1822 in Walterboro, S.C. He was the second of five sons of James Sanders and Sarah Bond Warley Miles. Miles was taught at home with his younger brothers until 1836, when he spent a few months at James B. Waddel's Willington Academy in the Abbeville District, S.C. He entered the College of Charleston in 1838 and graduated four years later with honors. Miles excelled particularly as an orator and in mathematics.
Miles read law in the office of Edward McCrady in Charleston, S.C., for a year, then returned to the College of Charleston as a professor of mathematics. During the summer of 1855, he traveled to Norfolk, Va., to serve as a volunteer nurse in the yellow fever epidemic. When news of his services reached Charleston, friends recalled his gifted oratory, dignified presence, and social position, and wrote laudatory letters that appeared in the Charleston Mercury. While Miles was still in Norfolk, a group of influential Charlestonians nominated him to be the Southern Rights Party candidate for mayor. Miles accepted the nomination, though he remained in Norfolk until two days before the election. He won in a light turnout, resigned his post at the College of Charleston, and was administered the oath of his new office on 9 November 1855.
Miles' political career took another turn the following year when he ran for Congress on the Southern Rights Party ticket. Miles again did not campaign, but was elected by a small majority. During 1857, he concurrently served out his second year as mayor of Charleston and his first year representing the Charleston District, S.C., in Congress. Miles championed slavery and secession and was active in the southern independence movement. During his three years in office, Miles spent most of his time in Washington and immersed himself in the social life there. He shared his bachelor quarters in Washington with other prominent young men, apparently M. R. H. Garnett and Laurence M. Keitt, and possibly others at different times.
Upon resigning from Congress in 1860, Miles served as chair of the committee on foreign relations in the South Carolina secession convention, and signed the Ordinance of Secession. He represented the Charleston district in the Confederate Congress during its entire existence, including the Montgomery, Ala., convention, where Miles seems to have served as the principal South Carolina leader. He played an active role in drawing up the new constitution, making major decisions, and awarding appointments, and he was chair of the Committee on the Flag and chair of the Committee on Military Affairs. In 1861, Miles served briefly as aide-de-camp to General P. G. T. Beauregard.
Miles married Betty Bierne (d. 1874), the daughter of Oliver Bierne, a wealthy Virginia and Louisiana planter, in 1863. From 1865 to 1867, Miles and his family resided in Charleston, but unable to prosper in the depressed post-war conditions, they moved to Oak Grove Plantation in Oakridge, Nelson County, Va., which had been purchased by Oliver Bierne. After Betty died in 1874, Miles and the children stayed on at Oakridge for several more years, with the continued financial support of his father-in-law.
In 1880, William Porcher Miles returned to South Carolina to become president of South Carolina College. He resigned this position in 1882 to manage his father-in-law's recent inheritance, Houmas Plantation (now Burnside) in Ascension Parish, La. Miles became one of the largest planters in the state, controlling at least seven plantations that produced twenty million pounds of sugar annually. He served as president of the Ascension branch of the Louisiana Sugar Planters' Association and was one of the founders of a sugar experiment station and of The Louisiana Planter and Sugar Manufacturer, a weekly newspaper published in New Orleans. Miles continued to be active in state and local political matters, though he did not seek elected office. He opposed the state lottery, the sugar tariff, and other measures of the Republican Party.
Miles died at his home, Houmas House, on 11 May 1899.
See also Ruth McCaskill Daniel's "William Porcher Miles: Champion of Southern Interests," M.A. thesis, University of North Carolina, 1943).
Back to TopThe collection consists of personal, political, and military correspondence, diaries, and a few business papers and clippings of William Porcher Miles. Papers, 1784-1860, concern Miles and Warley family, friends, and social activities; Jews in Charleston; Miles's work at the College of Charleston; and local, state, and national politics. Political materials relate to Miles's tenure and responsibilities as mayor of Charleston, S.C., then as a United States congressman representing the Charleston district. There is extensive commentary on controversial issues leading to the Civil War, including slavery and runaway slaves, the Kansas-Nebraska bill and various other bills before Congress, the South Carolina Democratic Convention, the national Democratic Party nominating convention, elections, the South Carolina secession convention, anticipated foreign relations, and other problems facing the South as the war approached. Other topics include the 1855 yellow fever epidemic in Norfolk, Va., and improvements to the Charleston port, customs house, post office, canals, and statuary.
Papers, 1861-1865, document many political and military aspects of the Civil War. Topics include appointments and appropriations; secession and the Montgomery, Ala., convention; foreign policy for the Confederacy; financial and military preparations for war; troop morale, health, and logistics; confiscation of property; defense of coastal and inland South Carolina; runaway slaves, the removal of slaves from the low country, and the possible use of slaves as soldiers in the Confederate Army; the disposition of prisoners; and civilian morale in Charleston. Also included are a few letters relating to personal matters, in particular Miles's 1863 marriage to Betty Beirne. The April 2008 addition consists of a letter, 19 February 1864, written by William Porcher Miles to South Carolina Governor Milledge L. Bonham, concerning use of the blockade runner Alice of Bee and Company to export South Carolina's cotton and his hope for a reform of the Confederate government's control over blockade running.
Papers, 1866-1906 and undated, document postwar conditions in Charleston, including economic and social conditions during Reconstruction and perceived effects of citizenship and wages on freedmen. Also included are materials relating to Miles's efforts to find work in an academic setting, first at Johns Hopkins University and then at South Carolina College and the Peabody Educational Fund; his management of Oak Grove Plantation, Oakridge, Nelson County, Va., and Houmas Plantation, Ascension Parish, La.; his involvement in state and local Democratic Party politics in Ascension Parish, La., especially with regard to the lottery, sugar tariff, and sugar bounty; and his leadership role in the Louisiana Sugar Planters Association. There are a few materials relating to flood control and levees in the lower Mississippi and Episcopal Church matters. Also included throughout this period are letters with news of family, friends, and social activities.
The diaries, 1867-1897, consist of daily entries giving a brief resume of the daily activities of Miles and his family, including visits and visitors, debts incurred, bills paid, work on the plantations, and letters written. The diaries give a general picture of Miles's way of life, indebtedness, political and religious beliefs, and personal relations while running the Oak Grove and Houmas plantations and as college president at Columbia, S.C. Also documented is the 1874 death of Betty Bierne Miles in childbirth.
Back to TopArrangement: chronological.
The collection consists of personal, political, and military correspondence, diaries, and a few business papers and clippings of William Porcher Miles (1822-1899). Papers, 1784-1849, concern Miles and Warley family, friends, and social activities, and Miles's work at the College of Charleston. Also included are a few letters of James B. Waddel, headmaster of the Willington Academy in Abbeville District, S.C., reporting on the progress of James Sanders Miles's children and the dismissal of a teacher who advocated "immediate abolition of slavery"; a letter from Samuel I. Legare regarding a Charleston town meeting concerning Jews; and a letter from Reverend S. Gilman inviting Miles to discuss phrenology at a literary club.
Papers, 1850-1860, relate to Miles and Warley family, friends, and social activities; Miles' work at the College of Charleston; and, increasingly, local, state, and national politics. Included are letters discussing the Norfolk yellow fever epidemic; improvements to the Charleston port, customs house, post office, canals, and statuary; Miles's tenure and responsibilities as mayor of Charleston, then as United States congressman representing the Charleston district; comparisons of slavery in the South and Cuba; Governor James H. Adams' desire to re-open slave trade; attitudes of non-southerners toward slavery and the South; a proposed duel between Congressmen Roger Atkinson Pryor and John Fox Potter; and the murder of William J. Keitt by his slaves. There are political commentaries by William H. Trescott, Andrew G. Macgrath, James Henry Hammond, and many other leading figures of the day on the Kansas-Nebraska bill and various other bills before Congress, secession, the South Carolina Democratic Party Convention, the national Democratic nominating convention, elections, the South Carolina secession convention, and other problems facing the South as the war approached inevitability. Also included are several letters relating to the 305 Africans illegally on board The Echo , taken ashore in Charleston and later returned to Africa on the steamer General Clinch.
Papers, 1861-1865, chiefly concern political and military matters. As a representative to the Confederate congress and chair of the Military Affairs Committee, Miles received many requests for favors, appointments, appropriations, and recommendations from his civilian, government, and military constituents. Other subjects include secession and the Montgomery, Ala., convention; foreign policy for the Confederacy; financial and military preparations for war; troop pay, promotions, sickness, transportation, enlistment and conscript laws, transfers from militia to the regular army, and morale impaired by drunkenness and lack of patriotism; military appointments for friends and unqualified persons and other abuses of power; confiscation of property; defense of coastal and inland South Carolina; runaway slaves, the removal of slaves from the low country, and the possible use of slaves as soldiers in the Confederate Army; the disposition of prisoners; making military reports public; securing passes through lines; and civilian morale in Charleston. Also included are a few letters relating to Benjamin F. Evans, who disappeared while bearing dispatches from England to the Confederacy and reappeared after a transcontinental, transoceanic escape from United States troops; a few letters concerning Rachel Johnson, "a free colored person of Indian descent," who was successively involved with a number of Charleston men, and efforts to gain passage for her through the lines to New York; a letter from Amelia Parker about establishing a war relief organization in Virginia; and a few letters relating to personal matters, in particular Miles's 1863 marriage to Betty Beirne. The April 2008 addition consists of a letter, 19 February 1864, written by William Porcher Miles to South Carolina Governor Milledge L. Bonham, concerning use of the blockade runner Alice of Bee and Company to export South Carolina's cotton and his hope for a reform of the Confederate government's control over blockade running.
Papers, 1866-1906 and undated, document postwar conditions in Charleston, including economic and social conditions during Reconstruction, talk of emigration, and perceived effects of citizenship and wages on freedmen. Also included are materials relating to Miles's efforts to find work in an academic setting, first at Johns Hopkins University and then at South Carolina College and the Peabody Educational Fund; his management of Oak Grove Plantation, Oakridge, Nelson County, Va., and Houmas Plantation, Ascension Parish, La.; his involvement in state and local Democratic Party politics in Ascension Parish, La., especially with regard to the lottery, sugar tariff, and sugar bounty; and his leadership role in the Louisiana Sugar Planters Association. There are a few materials relating to flood control and levees in the lower Mississippi and Episcopal church matters. Also included throughout this period are letters with news of family, friends, and social activities.
The diaries, 1867-1897, consist of daily entries of about five lines each, giving a brief resume of the daily activities of Miles and his family, including visits and visitors, debts incurred, bills paid, work on the plantations, and letters written. The diaries give a general picture of Miles's way of life, indebtedness, political and religious beliefs, and personal relations. Also documented is the 1874 death of Betty Bierne Miles in childbirth.
Folder 1a |
Finding aid, 1965Includes detailed inventory of correspondents and correspondence |
Folder 1b |
1784-1839 |
Folder 2 |
1840-1841 |
Folder 3 |
1842-1843 |
Folder 4 |
1844-1847 |
Folder 5 |
1848-1849 |
Folder 6 |
1850-1854 |
Folder 7 |
1855 |
Folder 8 |
1856 |
Folder 9 |
1857: January-June |
Folder 10 |
1857: July-September |
Folder 11 |
1857: November-December |
Folder 12 |
1858: January |
Folder 13 |
1858: February |
Folder 14 |
1858: March |
Reel M-508/1 |
Microfilm: 1784-March 1858 |
Folder 15 |
1858: April |
Folder 16 |
1858: May-July |
Folder 17 |
1858: August-September |
Folder 18 |
1858: October-December |
Folder 19 |
1859: January-February |
Folder 20 |
1859: March-April |
Folder 21 |
1859: May-November |
Folder 22 |
1859: December 1-20 |
Folder 23 |
1859: December 22-31 |
Folder 24 |
1860: January 1-15 |
Folder 25 |
1860: January 16-30 |
Folder 26 |
1860: February |
Folder 27 |
1860: March |
Folder 28 |
1860: April 1-12 |
Reel M-508/2 |
Microfilm: April 1858-12 April 1860 |
Folder 29 |
1860: April 13-28 |
Folder 30 |
1860: May |
Folder 31 |
1860: June-July |
Folder 32 |
1860: August-October |
Folder 33 |
1860: November |
Folder 34 |
1860: December |
Folder 35 |
1861: January |
Folder 36 |
1861: February 1-19 |
Folder 37 |
1861: February 20-28 |
Folder 38 |
1861: March 1-12 |
Folder 39 |
1861: March 13-30 |
Folder 40 |
1861: April |
Folder 41 |
1861: May |
Folder 42 |
1861: June-July |
Folder 43 |
1861: August 2-15 |
Folder 44 |
1861: August 16-31 |
Folder 45 |
1861: September-October |
Folder 46 |
1861: November |
Folder 47 |
1861: December |
Reel M-508/3 |
Microfilm: 12 April 1860-December 1861 |
Folder 48 |
1862: January-February |
Folder 49 |
1862: March 1-14 |
Folder 50 |
1862: March 15-31 |
Folder 51 |
1862: April-May |
Folder 52 |
1863-1864Includes the April 2008 addition (Acc. 100902): a letter, 19 February 1864, written by William Porcher Miles to South Carolina Governor Milledge L. Bonham, concerning use of the blockade runner Alice of Bee and Company to export South Carolina's cotton and his hope for a reform of the Confederate government's control over blockade running. |
Folder 53 |
1865-1866 |
Reel M-508/4 |
Microfilm: 1862-1866 |
Folder 54 |
1867-1869 |
Folder 55 |
1870-1871 |
Folder 56 |
1872-1873 |
Folder 57 |
1874: January-July |
Folder 58 |
1874: August |
Folder 59 |
1874: September |
Folder 60 |
1874: October |
Folder 61 |
1874: November-December |
Folder 62 |
1875 |
Folder 63 |
1876 |
Folder 64 |
1877 |
Folder 65 |
1878-1879 |
Folder 66 |
1880: January-July |
Folder 67 |
1880: August-December |
Folder 68 |
1881: January-March |
Folder 69 |
1881: April-November |
Folder 70 |
1882: April-May |
Folder 71 |
1882: June-December |
Folder 72 |
1883 |
Folder 73 |
1884 |
Folder 74 |
1885 |
Folder 75 |
1886 |
Folder 76 |
1887 |
Folder 77 |
1888 |
Folder 78 |
1889 |
Folder 79 |
1890: January-June |
Folder 80 |
1890: July-December |
Folder 81 |
1891: January-June |
Folder 82 |
1891: July-December |
Folder 83 |
1892: January-February |
Folder 84 |
1892: March |
Folder 85 |
1892: April-May |
Folder 86 |
1892: June-October |
Folder 87 |
1892: November-December |
Folder 88 |
1893: January-February |
Folder 89 |
1893: March-April |
Folder 90 |
1893: May-September |
Folder 91 |
1893: October-November |
Folder 92 |
1893: December |
Folder 93 |
1894: January-February |
Folder 94 |
1894: March |
Folder 95 |
1894: April-May |
Folder 96 |
1894: June-August |
Folder 97 |
1894: September |
Folder 98 |
1894: October-November |
Folder 99 |
1894: December |
Folder 100 |
1895: January-February |
Folder 101 |
1895: March-April |
Folder 102 |
1895: June-November |
Folder 103 |
1895: December |
Folder 104 |
1896: January-March |
Folder 105 |
1896: April-October |
Folder 106 |
1896: November-December |
Folder 107 |
1897-1898, 1906 |
Folder 108 |
Undated letters from William Gilmore Simms |
Folder 109 |
Undated: A-B |
Folder 110 |
Undated: C-F |
Folder 111 |
Undated: G-L |
Folder 112 |
Undated: M-P |
Folder 113 |
Undated: R-T |
Folder 114 |
Undated: U-Z |
Folder 115 |
Undated: signatures illegible |
Folder 116 |
Newspaper clippings, circa 1854-1895 |
Folder 117 |
MiscellaneousChiefly envelopes; also includes a list of the board of trustees of the Camden Female College in South Carolina; and a report card from the Hanover Academy for W.P. Miles, 1880-1881 |
Folder 118 |
Volume 1: 9 November 1867-17 September 1868Account of farm in Oak Ridge, Nelson County, Va.; farm records and weather data. |
Folder 119 |
Volume 2: 18 September 1868-31 December 1869Oak Ridge, Va.; farm records and weather data. |
Folder 120 |
Volume 3: 1870Oak Ridge, Va.; crop failure raises possibility of selling farm at end of year; farm records and weather data. |
Folder 121 |
Volume 4: 1871Oak Ridge, Va.; first year of balanced accounts for farm; farm rent for 1872; weather data. |
Folder 122 |
Volume 5: 1872Oak Ridge, Va.; desires to abandon coarse farming of Virginia and return to Charleston, S.C.; weather data. |
Folder 123 |
Volume 6: 1873Oak Ridge, Va. |
Folder 124 |
Volume 7: 1 January 1874-22 October 1874Oak Ridge, Va.; death of Betty Beirne Miles in childbirth. |
Folder 125 |
Volume 8: 1875Oak Ridge, Va. |
Folder 126 |
Volume 9: 1876Oak Ridge, Va. |
Folder 127 |
Volume 10: 1877Oak Ridge, Va.; severe farm debts cause great anxiety. |
Folder 128 |
Volume 11: 1878Oak Ridge, Va.; farm debts and problems cause consideration of sending children to live with their grandfather in the mountains. |
Folder 129 |
Volume 12: 1879Oak Ridge, Va. |
Folder 130 |
Volume 13: 1 January 1880-15 October 1880Oak Ridge, Va. Decides to accept position of president of South Carolina College, Columbia, S.C. |
Folder 131 |
Volume 14: 16 October 1880-3 January 1881Columbia, S.C.; president of South Carolina College. |
Folder 132 |
Volume 15: 1881Columbia, S.C.; president of South Carolina College. |
Folder 133 |
Volume 16: 1882Columbia, S.C.; president of South Carolina College; decides to move to Ascension Parish, La., to manage Houmas Plantations (7) for father-in-law Oliver Beirne. |
Folder 134 |
Volume 17: 1883Houmas Plantations, Ascension Parish, La. |
Folder 135 |
Volume 18: 1884Houmas Plantation, Ascension Parish, La.; notes that rice and sugar cane farming is much improved over Virginia farming. |
Folder 136 |
Volume 19: 1885Houmas Plantation, Ascension Parish, La. |
Folder 137 |
Volume 20: 1886Houmas Plantation, Ascension Parish, La. |
Folder 138 |
Volume 21: 1887Houmas Plantation, Ascension Parish, La. |
Reel M-508/5 |
Microfilm: Volumes 20 and 21 |
Folder 139 |
Volume 22: 1888Houmas Plantation, Ascension Parish, La. |
Folder 140 |
Volume 23: 1889Houmas Plantation, Ascension Parish, La.; issues of sugar planters becoming serious. |
Folder 141 |
Volume 24: 1890Houmas Plantation, Ascension Parish, La. |
Folder 142 |
Volume 25: 1891Houmas Plantation, Ascension Parish, La. |
Folder 143 |
Volume 26: 1892Houmas Plantation, Ascension Parish, La. |
Folder 144 |
Volume 27: 1893Houmas Plantation, Ascension Parish, La.; much issue over levees in Delta region, including Ascension Parish area. |
Folder 145 |
Volume 28: 1894Houmas Plantation, Ascension Parish, La. |
Folder 146 |
Volume 29: 1895Houmas Plantation, Ascension Parish, La.; resignation as president of Ascension Parish delegation to the Louisiana Democratic Convention. |
Folder 147 |
Volume 30: 1896Houmas Plantation, Ascension Parish, La. |
Folder 148 |
Volume 31: 1 January 1897-23 September 1897Houmas Plantation, Ascension Parish, La.; blindness caused by cataracts. |
Oversize Paper Folder OPF-508/1 |
Oversize papers |
Transcription Volume TV-508/1 |
W. P. Miles Diary, 1867-1869 |
Transcription Volume TV-508/2 |
W. P. Miles Diary, 1870-1871 |
Transcription Volume TV-508/3 |
W. P. Miles Diary, 1872 |
Transcription Volume TV-508/4 |
W. P. Miles Diary, 1873-1874 |
Transcription Volume TV-508/5 |
W. P. Miles Diary, 1875-1876 |
Transcription Volume TV-508/6 |
W. P. Miles Diary, 1877-1879 |
Transcription Volume TV-508/7 |
W. P. Miles Diary, 1880-1881 |
Transcription Volume TV-508/8 |
W. P. Miles Diary, 1882-1883 |
Transcription Volume TV-508/9 |
W. P. Miles Diary, 1884-1885 |
Transcription Volume TV-508/10 |
W. P. Miles Diary, 1886-1887 |