PUBLIC "-//Virginia Military Institute::Preston Library::Archives//TEXT (US::ViLxV::vilxv00055::A Guide to the Thomas B. Davis Collection)//EN" "vilxv00055.xml" A Guide to the Thomas B. Davis Collection, 1862-1864 Davis, Thomas B., Collection mss 00026 Diane B. Jacob Web version of the finding aid funded in part by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities. Virginia Military Institute Archives © 2002 Virginia Military Institute

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Machine-readable finding aid derived from Microsoft Access 2000 database. Machine-readable finding aid created by Diane Jacob. Date of source: 2002 Description is in English Feb 16, 2004 PUBLIC "-//Virginia Military Institute::Preston Library::Archives//TEXT (US::ViLxV::vilxv00055::A Guide to the Thomas B. Davis Collection)//EN" "vilxv00055.xml" converted from EAD 1.0 to 2002 by v1to02.xsl (sy2003-10-15). Feb 26, 2004 converted to conform to eadVIVA.dtd by vivastrict.xsl 2013-11-21 Converted to schema conforming EAD by dtd2schema.vh.xsl. A Guide to the Thomas B. Davis Collection, 1862-1864 A Collection in Virginia Military Institute Archives mss 00026

Virginia Military Institute Archives 2002 Virginia Military Institute Archives Staff Web version of the finding aid funded in part by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities. Archives, Preston Library, Virginia Military Institute Descriptive Summary Archives, Preston Library, Virginia Military Institute Thomas B. Davis Collection 1862-1864 mss 00026 The collection consists of 2 items. English Administrative Information Access

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 Use Restrictions

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 Preferred Citation

Thomas B. Davis Collection, mss 00026, Virginia Military Institute Archives, Lexington, Virginia

 Biographical/Historical Information

Thomas Bowker Davis was born in Lynchburg, Virginia in 1843 (some records show 1842). He entered the Virginia Military Institute in January 1862 and resigned in January 1864 in order to join the Confederate Army. Davis enlisted as a Private in Company D, 2nd Virginia Cavalry Regiment. He was mortally wounded in action and captured on October 8, 1864 near Fisher's Hill; he died in prison on October 20.

 Scope and Content Information

The Thomas B. Davis collection contains two items. The first is a letter from Davis to his sister, Mrs. Camillus Christian, dated March 22, 1863. This letter was written while Davis was a cadet at the Virginia Military Institute in Lexington, VA. In this letter he mentions activities at VMI, Civil War news ("a considerable cavalry fight on the Rappahannock"), the unusual late snows, and provides an early use of the term ratas a reference to new cadets ("The legislature is still cutting up about our maltreating the new cadets, or as we call them, Rats....says that we are a set of precocious youths who came here to avoid conscription"). The second item in the collection is a VMI cadet account book containing school expenses.