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Papers of Thomas Marshall Hunter documenting Thomas Marshall Hunter as well as the genealogy and history of the Hunter family, including descendants of John Hunter (1762-1845), a Scot-Irish immigrant and Morgan County resident who is the earliest American member of the family. There are scrapbooks regarding Thomas Hunters experiences at Shepherd College and in World War II. There is also material regarding the history of Berkeley Springs and Morgan County, and about David Hunter Strother. Hunter worked as a Berkeley Springs legal clerk during the Great Depression, and then briefly served in the U.S. Army, including an assignment to the Panama Canal Zone. He then left the Army to pursue a college education in history. During World War II he served on the staff of the Transportation Corps of the 4th Armored Division. He resumed his college studies after the war, later becoming an Associate Professor of History at Pennsylvania State University.

Mainly letters written to Bassel from U.S. Army officers from various forts and camps in several western states and territories. There are no copies of Bassel's correspondence in the collection, but his career in the army to about 1870, his subsequent military service in Egypt, and his employment in China and Japan, ca.1874-1875, as the representative of an American ship builder, are covered in the letters. There are a few letters from Thomas Handbury, a cadet at West Point in 1862; also materials on political affairs in West Virginia, including Bassel's candidacy on the People's Party ticket for governor of West Virginia in 1892, and certificates of election returns from several counties in 1892.

Selected documents from the service record of Col. James Monroe Ingalls, U.S. Army, who was professor of military science and tactics and professor of mathematics at West Virginia University, 1877-1878. The collection includes correspondence and memoranda, 1878-1884, concerning the retention of Ingalls at WVU or the assignment of another qualified officer, comments on the inadequacy of the law governing the apportionment of officers to land-grant colleges, and a catalog of the professional works and papers of Ingalls. Correspondents include William W. Belknap, James R. Thompson, George W. McCrary, Rutherford B. Hayes, Waitman T. Willey, and George C. Sturgiss.

A collection of correspondence, photographs, and ephemera created and collected by Jay A. Urice, Jr., including during his time serving in the Korean War as a Private, First Class in the U.S. Army 40th Infantry Division, 3rd Battalion, 223rd Regimental Combat Team.

One of the copies of the surrender document of Japanese garrisons on Aka Shima and Tokashiki Shima to U.S. forces on Zamani Shima, all islands being a part of the Kerama Retto group near Okinawa. These were the first two Japanese garrisons to formally surrender after the Japanese imperial announcement of capitulation to the Allies in World War II. Their surrender was managed and accepted by the U.S. commander, a West Virginian, Julian G. Hearne, in command of the 24th Infantry Regiment, the main contingent of the U.S. Army Garrison Force of the Kerama Retto. Included is Hearne's report of his unit's activities, such as the clearing of mines and traps, performed as a part of the process of surrender.

Transcription of an oral history interview by Niel M. Johnson of the Harry S. Truman Library with Ken Hechler. Hechler, born 1914 in Roslyn, NY, received A.B., Swarthmore 1935; M.A., Columbia 1936; Ph.D., Columbia 1940 in Political Science which he later taught at Columbia, Princeton, and Marshall Universities. He served as a U. S. Army combat historian in Europe during World War II. Hechler was a research assistant to President Franklin D. Roosevelt and was special assistant to President Harry S. Truman. He was elected to the U. S. House of Representatives as a Democrat from the Fourth Congressional District of West Virginia, 1958-77. A major part of the interview is about his work for President Truman as a speechwriter in political campaigns dealing with issues of public concern in the immediate post-war years such as the Korean War and political corruption. After completion of his White House duties he relocated to Huntington where as a professor at Marshall he staged a successful campaign for U. S. Congress. He mentions, as a congressman, his independence from his own party's state machine and his promotion of controversial causes such as implementation of civil rights and environmental protection legislation. Hechler is a popular, progressive who used a personal contact "grassroots" approach to campaigning. Eschewing the increasing costs of political campaigns and the heavy dependence of candidates on public relations firms, he was defeated in the late 1970's in his gubernatorial and congressional bids. He was successful, though in making a comeback in the 1984 race for West Virginia Secretary of State. He ends the interview by specifying the duties of this office and his accomplishments in it to date. Significant references are made to Dean Acheson, David Bell, Robert C. Brooks, John Carroll, Clark Clifford, Dwight Eisenhower, George Elsey, Hermann Goering, George Hechler, Lyndon B. Johnson, Max Kampelman, Estes Kefauver, Raymond Moley, Will Neal, George S. Patton, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Samuel I. Rosenman, Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., Adlai Stevenson, Harry S. Truman, Harry Vaughan.