In honor of Archives Month, I thought I would post once a week about various repositories which I visited, and comment upon some of the resources I found.

Today, I’ll write about Louisiana State University, Special Collections, specifically their Louisiana and Lower Mississippi Valley Collections (LLMVC).

Simply put, their collections are extraordinary. I used far too many resources to list here, individually, but some of the most valuable information I found included:

• Not just John Q. Anderson’s research notes and material related to his writing of Brokenburn, but also his correspondence with Kate (Stone) Holmes’ daughter, “Miss Amy.” Amy was very proud of her mother, honored the suffering of the civilians  – especially the women who were left behind, and was greatly disturbed by the changes and turmoil of the Civil Rights movement.
• Materials relating to Honore Morancy who settled near Milliken’s Bend. He was a refugee from the Hatian Revolution, and fled to the United States as a child, stowed away on a ship in a hogshead by his nurse. His father was killed. Charles Carroll, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, was the boy’s benefactor, and saw to it that he received a good education. Carroll Parish in the northeastern corner of Louisiana, would be named in honor of Charles Carroll. By the time of the Civil War, Honore Morancy was a wealthy planter, now in his sixties, living in Madison Parish. He held more than 100 persons in bondage.  [Unfortunately, space did not permit the inclusion of his story in my book.]
• The papers of Confederate governor of Louisiana, Thomas O. Moore. By the time of Milliken’s Bend, Moore and the rest of the state government had relocated to Shreveport, after southeastern Louisiana fell to the Yankees. Moore’s home was near Alexandria, in the middle part of the state, and his papers contain much correspondence between himself and a man who was on Moore’s plantation, looking after his affairs and keeping his plantation running. Moore’s agent reports fearful activities as Banks’ army approached, detailing fires, laxity from the slaves – and even mass slave desertions. A few of them soon returned – not satisfied with their treatment by the Yankees. [Space did not permit inclusion of these accounts in the book.]
• And much more, such as letters written by Union soldiers stationed in the Lake Providence, Young’s Point, and Milliken’s Bend areas – particularly useful for describing the countryside, living conditions, canal dredging operations, and weather; slave narratives gathered by the WPA in the 1930s; and a report from Judge Lewis Dent, Grant’s brother-in-law and a U.S. plantation lessee in northeastern Louisiana.

The resources and professionals at LSU Special Collections provided essential information to me during the course of my research, and I’m grateful for their help. Here’s to you, LSU! Happy Archives Month to you!

Sources: John Q. Anderson Papers, (Mss. 2156, 2162); Honore P. Morancy Family Papers, (Mss. 2430); and Thomas O. Moore Papers, (Mss. 305, 893, 1094,) portions reproduced in Records of Ante-bellum Southern Plantations, Part 2: Louisiana and miscellaneous, Series I: Louisiana State University, reel 19.