Caption: 'Birds-eye view of the city of Charleston, South Carolina, showing the approaches of our gun-boats and our army.--[see page 431.]' [full date July 5, 1862.]
The John Ball Memo Book, 1850-1851, is a bound volume listing crops at Hyde Park Plantation and the Villa as well as miscellaneous accounts for corking a dock, grass for cows, seeds for the garden, blue denim cloth, tobacco, ticking, shoes, molasses, tea and other household items. Also included is a list of men defaulting on militia duty and patrol service for January, March and April of 1851.
A letter from William Ball in Edinburgh, Scotland to his father John Ball Sr. at Kensington Plantation discussing health, the weather, a storm damaging the vessel that carried William's previous letter, a political peace between "the French and the combined forces," and the death of William Pitt the Younger.
A letter from William Ball in Edinburgh, Scotland to his father John Ball at Kensington Plantation discussing his travels, classes in physics, chemistry, and anatomy, the "Corsican Hero," and Lord Nelson's death fighting against the French and Spanish.
A letter from William Ball in Frenchay, England to his father John Ball Sr. in Charleston, South Carolina discussing William's arrival in England, the health of his cousin Eleanor, the death of his Royal Highness Prince William Henry, Duke of Gloucester and Edinburgh, and news about an army of Austrians and Russians marching into France and Spain to reinstate the House of Bourbon.
A letter from William Ball in Edinburgh, Scotland to his father John Ball at Kensington Plantation discussing letter writing, damage to the crops in South Carolina, and the British troops in the Napoleonic Wars.
A letter from John Ball in Charleston, South Carolina to his son John Ball Jr. at Harvard College in Massachusetts discussing the family's passage to Charleston, Jane Ball's health, numerous deaths from sickness and the burial of Col. Darrell of the Artillery.
A letter from John Ball in Charleston, South Carolina to his son John Ball Jr. at Harvard College in Massachusetts discussing "the sickly season," the health of the family, those suffering from the "prevailing fever" also referenced as yellow fever or "black vomit," the conditions of the rice and cotton crops, the Regiment of Artillery, and an inquiry into the parties John attends at school.
A letter from John Ball in Charleston, South Carolina to his son John Ball Jr. at Harvard College in Massachusetts discussing Allston's poem at college, that John has "grown very fat," Mr. Williams contracting a disease, the "nature of man," the family leaving for the winter, and the Battalion of the 30th Regiment under John Ball Sr.'s command.
A letter from John Ball St. at Kensington Plantation to her son John Ball Jr. at Harvard College in Massachusetts discussing an invitation for Captain Tilden to visit, the Charleston races, a leak under the flood gate at the mill, and Brigadier General W. Washington appointed to a command in the federal army resulting in numerous miliary promotions including that of John Ball Sr. as Major of the 2nd Battalion.
