Miscellaneous Documents

This collection contains correspondence, newspaper clippings and one manuscript of the 19th-century author Augusta Evans Wilson of Mobile, Alabama. Her personal correspondence contains original letters and photocopies, the majority written to Rachel Lyons Heustis and J. L. M. Curry, discussing life during the Civil War and Mrs. Wilson's novels. Other prominent correspondents include Confederate General Pierre Gustave Toutant Beauregard; educator, Congressman, and Baptist minister, J.L.M. Curry; and Congressman and U.S. Consul at Leeds, Norfleet Harris.

The newspaper clippings include requests by Mrs. Wilson for assistance in preserving graves and erecting monuments of the Confederate dead as well as an obituary essay she wrote at the death of her 22-month old niece and namesake, Augusta Vivian Evans. There are also several articles about her childhood home, Sherwood Hall (later renamed St. Elmo after her story) in Columbus, Georgia.

The manuscript is a bound, hand-written copy of Vashti with a note from the publisher, G. W. Carlton, written on the title page saying, "To the Printer. This Ms is to be Carefully handled and preserved. Every page of it. April 8, 1869 Carlton"