Newspaper Article and Letter

The collection contains a newspaper article entitled "Yankee colonel wavered that terrible day, but orders were to burn U of A to ground" and the carbon copy of a letter from Charles G. Summersell to C.E. Williams about Phi Theta Kappa's presentation, "Vocata," commemorating the burning of the University of Alabama by Yankee soldiers in April, 1865, just weeks before Lee's surrender in Appomattox, Virginia.

There are also four photographs to accompany the "Vocata" text with a page telling who is in photograph. Some of the people mentioned are Harriet Chappel Owsley (Mrs. Frank L.), Professor Bernard C. Weber, Charles C. Cantrell, Professor John Frazier Ramsey, Professor John F. Pancake, Professor Frank Lawrence Owsley (Sr.), Professor Charle Grayson Summersell, and Mrs. Charles G. Summersell.

There is a note on the bottom of the paper that identifies everyone in the photos.That note says: "In the book, the versions of the Vocata are bound from first to last. If my memory serves me right, we sold copies of the final version. There was still, and I assume still is, a mound near the Gorgas House where the remains of the earlier buildings were buried." The writer is not identified.