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Private journal of George K. Campbell of Athens County, Ohio, who served as an officer in Company B of the 116th. Ohio Volunteer Infantry during the Gettysburg campaign and the summer, fall, and winter of 1863, when he saw service in Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland, and Pennsylvania. Campbell served detached duty as an escort officer for recruits and prisoners during the spring and summer of 1864 and visited New York, Washington, D.C., Pennsylvania, Ohio, Kentucky, and Tennessee. He joined Company B of the 187th Ohio Volunteer Infantry in September 1864. That unit was soon consolidated and became Company E of the 174th. Ohio Volunteer Infantry.

Letters from John Ruff, Lexington, Virginia, to his son-in-law, John D. Martin, a Methodist clergyman stationed in Lewistown, Pennsylvania; Salem, Lewisburg, Front Royal and Leesburg, Virginia; and Baltimore, Maryland. Also one letter from Martin to his wife, Susan, dated Lewisburg, Virginia, 1841. Subjects include Methodism and meetings in the Lexington-Covington area, slavery controversy within the Methodist Church and in particular the Baltimore Conference, and farming in Lexington, Virginia.

Personal and business papers of the Lewis family, mainly of John D. (1800-1882), Charles C., Sr. (b.1839), and Charles C., Jr. (b.1865), of Kanawha County. For the period 1825-1875 there are papers of various members of the Ruffner, Dickinson, and Wilson families of West Virginia, Virginia, Ohio, Kansas, Missouri, and other states. The business papers relate to farming operations, the purchase and sale of slaves, salt manufacturing and trade, the Old Sweet Springs Company, coal, iron, oil, lumbering, railroads, and real estate in Kanawha, Clay, Boone, Fayette, and Nicholas counties. There are newspaper clippings, speeches, and other papers reflecting the Lewis' interests in the Democratic Party in the period 1914-1920. Settlement papers and correspondence regarding the estates of John D. Lewis, and Joel, Daniel, and Andrew Ruffner are in the collection. The personal papers include diaries, scrapbooks, photographs, and letters. Travel accounts in the United States, South America, and Europe are given in the correspondence, as well as comments on schools in West Virginia and Virginia; the building of a church in Kanawha County in 1834; missionary work in Colombia, South America, 1874-1875; Civil War and postwar conditions in Virginia, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Kentucky, and Missouri; conditions at Camp Chase, in the Civil War; and material relating to World War I.

Correspondence of W.K. Marshall, a West Virginia railroad engineer, includes letters received from his wife and sons in Callaghan, Virginia, as well as the letters he wrote to them. This collection also includes letters from Marshall's brother and niece. Marshall's correspondence concerns the following subjects: personal and family matters; employment conditions on the railroad; railroad accidents; trade union and fraternal society insurance plans. Letters from Marshall's wife touch on people and events in Callaghan, Virginia and on the family's farm work.