Old Times Here are Not Forgotten: Remembering the Civil War

Randall Lee Gibson, c. 1861. Andrew D. Lytle Collection, Mss. 893. Randall Lee Gibson, Confederate States Army general and New Orleans lawyer, later became a United States representative and senator from Louisiana.

Speaking to the Women’s Loyal League in New York City in 1865, Frederick Douglass asserted that a “battle lost or won is easily described, understood, and appreciated, but the moral growth of a great nation requires reflection, as well as observation, to appreciate it.” Including a variety of unique Civil War materials from the holdings of Special Collections, “Old Times” offers visitors an opportunity for such reflection.

Contemporary letters and diaries tell the harrowing stories of both civilians and soldiers who experienced the war in and around Baton Rouge. A large watercolor map of the Battle of Baton Rouge identifies the important buildings in town, as well as the positions of combatants and “property burnt for the defenses,” while contemporary military reports and hand-drawn sketches offer more details. Photographs taken by Andrew Lytle show a ravaged Baton Rouge occupied by Federal troops.

Works printed in the Confederacy during the war offer testimony to the daunting economic and organizational challenges the would-be nation faced and to the high price its citizens paid, both in lives and livelihoods. The war inspired a flurry of musical composition in the South, where patriotic songs were used to boost morale on both the home front and on the battlefield.  Examples ranging from the “Dixie War Song” to “The Southern Marseillaise” published by A. E. Blackmar are on display.

Battle of Baton Rouge fought on the 5th of August 1862, n.d. Mss. 4873, Louisiana and Lower Mississippi Valley Collections, LSU Libraries. This hand-colored, hand-drawn, map on linen depicts the battle area comprising downtown Baton Rouge and the countryside nearby.

A war not forgotten, the Civil War’s long-lasting impact on our nation and the strength of the LSU Libraries Special Collections is reflected in an array of modern scholarly works based on research conducted using Special Collections resources. In addition selected books from the Michael Lehman Williamson Collection of Civil War Books for Young People will be on display in the second floor gallery under the title “Blue and Gray for Boys and Girls.”

In addition to this exhibition, LSU Libraries Special Collections has participated in several major commemorative projects related to the sesquicentennial of the American Civil War. Special Collections digitized numerous manuscript and print resources, contributing significantly to the “Civil War in the American South,” a sesquicentennial project of the Association of Southeastern Research Libraries. The materials are accessible at http://american-south.org/institutions/luu or via the Louisiana Digital Library at http://tinyurl.com/LSULibSCCivilWar. Last year, the LSU Libraries presented the exhibition “The Dear Ones at Home: Women’s Letters and Diaries of the Civil War Era” to mark the anniversary of the start of the Civil War. Information on the exhibition and featured materials is available at http://hill.blogs.lib.lsu.edu/2010/12/the-dear-ones-at-home.

Frightful Fauna

"Frightful Fauna: A Spooky Sampling of Works from the E. A. McIlhenny Natural History Collection" is a mini-exhibition in the Hill lecture hall. Throughout human history, people have responded to the unknown in one of two ways: with fear or curiosity. Colored by those reactions, efforts to explain have likewise resulted in the divergent doctrines of superstition and science.

The drive to understand our world—whether motivated by war, trade and the promise of financial gain, threat of disease, or purely by an adventurous spirit—has pushed extraordinary individuals from trepidation to observation. Their legacy is a vast, ever-expanding body of knowledge about the natural world and our place in it.

The E. A. McIlhenny Natural History Collection contains numerous rare, important, and influential volumes spanning five centuries that represent the efforts of humans to understand and record the natural world. While works on botany and ornithology make up the bulk of the collection, additional important titles on the animal kingdom are also included.

The Halloween holiday offers a unique opportunity to showcase materials from the E. A. McIlhenny Natural History Collection through the lens of fear; creatures traditionally considered “creepy” and threatening are included in this small exhibition. To their credit, the authors and artists of the displayed works did not scare easily and devoted their time to empirical observation and meticulous illustration of these interesting animals.

Harvey G. Fields Papers

Huey Long contemporary Harvey Goodwyn Fields was born in Marksville in Avoyelles Parish, Louisiana, in 1883. His papers consist of correspondence addressing political issues in Louisiana, the State Democratic Central Committee, Franklin Roosevelt and some New Deal programs, and Huey Long. Political files consist of speeches, minutes of Democratic Executive Committee meetings, a number of political circular letters, and notes dealing with local election returns. Newspaper clippings, magazine articles, and printed volumes are included which deal with Louisiana politics and political figures, and a number of political fliers concern Louisiana politicians, including Huey Long. For additional information see the blog post. For an inventory of the collection, see the Finding Aid.

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