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Approximately 22,500 words total, a detailed manuscript account, in diary form, of long periods of the first two years of the Civil War in Virginia, April 18-August 12, 1861, and April 10- September 8, 1862. The diaries contain eye-witness accounts of Civil War battles, social commentary on life during wartime, and detailed descriptions of travel in Virginia, including trips to Montpelier and Weyer's Cave. The first diary features a detailed double-page manuscript map of the first Battle of Bull Run.

A survey for a plot of land in Greenbrier County dated 1789, a map showing coalfields in the Kanawha Valley dated 1867, genealogies of the Chapman and McGlathlen families, and letters from M.M. Neely, Arthur Capper, and Walter F. George.

Photocopy facsimile of scrapbook documenting the William E. Arnett, Sr. and family (11' x16'). Includes family history manuscripts, photographs, letters, newspaper clippings, church documents, ephemera of the Second National Bank of Morgantown, a land deed citing John and Louisa Huffman as grantors of Lot 83 to grantee Arnett, Sr. (1891), and obituaries for Arnett, Sr. and his wife, Iva. There is a manuscript narrative history of the Arnett family, and a family tree. Photographs are of Arnett, Sr. and family, including mostly candid group shots, as well as a few formal portraits of individuals and the family. Family events are recorded in letters from Arnett, Sr. to his children, while his business and political life are reported in the newspaper clippings. Church documents include programs, bulletins, and newsletters mentioning Arnett, Sr. and his wife, Iva. There are church programs celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of Wesley Methodist Church of Morgantown, as well as two photographs of the exterior of the church. William E. Arnett, Sr. (1866-1950) was a life-long resident of Monongalia County, West Virginia. He was a partner of the wholesale feed business, Kinkaid and Arnett. He also served as City Recorder for Morgantown, member of the City Council, President of the County Court, and as a member of the Board of Education. He was also active as a board member of the Wesley Methodist Church in Morgantown.

Civil War materials collected by Dr. Brooks in writing his biographies of Grant and Lee. Included are pamphlets, scrapbooks, newspapers, photographs, and originals and copies of soldiers' letters, journals, and military reports. There are typed copies of a journal, 3 November-2 December 1863, of a civilian observer in Tennessee, who was at Grant's headquarters at the Battle of Chattanooga; letters, 1861-1864, of William Ludwig, a private in the Thirty-fourth Ohio Volunteer Infantry in Fayette, Kanawha, and Cabell counties; Confederate officers' reports on the action around Beverly in July 1863; and a Union soldier's letter of 9 May 1863, describing the Battle of Chancellorsville.

Business records, correspondence, newspaper clippings, photographs, and other papers of the Cupp family, including Will E. Cupp, Mary J. Cupp, and Marie Cupp Nestor, of St. George, Tucker County, West Virginia. Included are Tucker County court fee books, 1856-1898, and personal and general store account books, 1897-1933.

Correspondence and miscellaneous papers of: a Monroe County, West Virginia, farmer and politician; his wife, Harriette Boswell Alexander; their daughters, Isabel and Alice Beulah; Alice's husband, Frank Hereford, U.S. senator from West Virginia; and his daughter, Katherine Hereford Stoddard. There is one folder of business papers, 1820-1841, of Thomas Edgar; a few letters from Caperton's son, John, while a cadet at the Camp of Instruction, Richmond, 1861; a folder of letters concerning Isabel's trips through the American West, the British Isles, and Europe; and a folder on family genealogy. Subjects include mid-nineteenth century life in Union, Monroe County; the excitement in Virginia following John Brown's raid; Washington, D.C., and the slavery controversy, 1860; the secession crisis in Virginia; impressment of material in Monroe County by Union troops; the effect of the war on the social and economic life of Richmond; work of the Ladies Relief Hospital in Lynchburg; and the aftermath of war in Virginia.

William G. Brown (1800-1884) of Kingwood, West Virginia, was an attorney; member of the Virginia Assembly in the 1830s and 1840s; and a member of Congress from Virginia from 1845 to 1849 and West Virginia from 1861 to 1865. Chiefly contains deeds, plats, surveys, and other papers related to Brown's land in Preston and Monongalia counties, West Virginia, from 1860 to 1874 and items from Brown's law office concerning deeds, wills, and financial transactions from 1870 to 1883. A ledger book from Brown records the sale of dry goods items, chiefly food such as bacon, wheat flour, corn, coffee, meat, and tobacco, and notes the cost of items, debts, and account settled. Papers also include typescript essays on American history, the Constitution, and slavery, written circa 1927 and a typed copy of a letter of J.J. Phillips of Lantz, 18 July 1931, concerning the removal of Confederate remains from the Rich Mountain Battlefield.