Letter from James B. Heyward to Rev. O.L. Bartier requesting a favor concerning the remains of his son, Nathaniel, who was killed in Manassas. James had traveled to Warrenton, Virginia, a few weeks after the battle and spoke to a wounded soldier who had helped bury Nathaniel but "the reported presence of the enemy" derailed James plans to accompany him to Manassas to disinter his son. James commissioned the soldier and two others to exhume the remains when safe and "place them in the grave yard of the Episcopal Church at Hay Market." A note was later received that the job had been done as requested but Heyward questions the veracity of the note and requests Rev. Bartier to look into the matter. 3p. November 6, 1862.
Letter from James B. Heyward in Columbia to Dr. D.W. Ray, trustee for the late owner whose land James had verbally agreed to rent. James is anxious to move his slaves there for safekeeping but is worried the trustee had no knowledge of the agreement between James and the recently departed owner. James also mentions that he must hasten back to the low country "as my property there is in peril from the proximity of the enemy." 2p. December 19, 1864.
Letter from Nellie B. Clarksall to Miss Heyward enclosing the previous letter of Sue Monroe. The letter concerns Miss Heyward's attempt to locate the remains of her uncle Nathaniel Heyward (II) who had died at the Second Battle of Bull Run. 3p. October 20, 1898.
“Stories Collected from Slaves” by Leonarda J. Aimar is a bound volume of formerly enslaved people's stories. In her transcription, she attempted to capture the storytellers’ colloquial speech, now recognized as the Gullah language. The volume includes a list of addresses, occupations, and diseases of African Americans during their enslavement; an eye-witness account of the Battle of Secessionville on James Island during the Civil War in 1862; how enslaved people were returned to their slaveholders following the Revolutionary War; and an account of Sherman's march from Savannah, Georgia to Charleston, South Carolina during the Civil War. A formerly enslaved man, Sam, provides a detailed account of being a butler, coachman, and horse jockey. He also recounts how Union Army Major Robert Anderson took control of Fort Sumter and the events that transpired there on April 12, 1861. Other accounts include an enslaved man’s recollections of his time as a servant to a plantation overseer who sympathized with the Union during the Civil War and formerly enslaved man Jim Alston’s detailed eye-witness account of the 1876 Cainhoy Riot.
A notebook (ca. 1920) containing reminiscences by Rose P. Ravenel, who writes about her girlhood, her relationship with her "mammy" and her French nurse. She describes life at Farmfield Plantation during the Civil War, knitting socks for Confederate soldiers, making paper and envelopes, salt production, molasses candy, flower dolls, and the family's hardships after the Civil War.
