Collection Details:

Collection Name and Number: William T. Walthall Papers (Z/0037).
Creator/Collector: William T. Walthall; and others.
Date(s): 1855-1932..
Size: 6.00 cubic feet.
Language(s): English.
Processed by: MDAH staff, 1956.
Provenance: Gift of Flora B. Walthall of Jackson, MS, in April 1946; December 1955; and June 1956.
Repository: Archives & Records Services Division, Mississippi Department of Archives & History.

 

Rights and Access:

Access restrictions: Collection is open for research.

Publication rights: Copyright assigned to the MDAH. All requests for permission to publish or quote from manuscripts must be submitted in writing to Reference Services. Permission for publication is given on behalf of the MDAH as the owner of the physical items and as the owner of the copyright in items created by the donor. Although the copyright was transferred by the donor, the respective creator may still hold copyright in some items in the collection. For further information, contact Reference Services.

Copyright notice: This material may be protected by copyright law (Title 17, U.S. Code).

Preferred citation: William T. Walthall Papers (Z/0037), Mississippi Department of Archives & History.

 

Biography:

William T. Walthall

William T. Walthall was born in Virginia, on July 2, 1820. He was educated for the bar but never practiced law. He was the leading editorial writer of the Mobile Tribune in 1860. He joined the Confederate States Army in 1861, rising to the rank of Major, and served throughout the Civil War. After the war, Walthall was an editorial writer for the Mobile Register.  In 1876, he moved to the Mississippi Gulf Coast to assist Jefferson Davis in the preparation of The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government. Walthall served as United States consul in Demerara, British Guiana, from 1888 to 1889.  He returned to Vicksburg where he lived until his death on May 15, 1899.

 

Scope and Content Note:

Business, personal, legal and military correspondence, newspaper clippings, broadsides, articles, and miscellaneous papers of William T. Walthall (1820–1899) of Vicksburg, Confederate soldier, journalist, diplomat, a close friend of Jefferson Davis, and reputed "ghost writer" of The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government.

The collection contains many Jefferson Davis letters; correspondence with the publishing firms of Turnbull Brothers and D. Appleton and Company, concerning The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government; correspondence concerning the capture of Jefferson Davis; and correspondence concerning the yellow fever epidemics of 1878 and 1882 in Memphis and Pensacola.

The collection contains correspondence with Confederate government officials, general field and staff officers in the Confederate States Army, and bishops and other clergy of the Protestant Episcopal Church.

The correspondence is arranged chronologically. Among the correspondents whose letters are in the collection are the following, together with the number of their letters:

  • Wirt Adams (1 letter)
  • E. Barksdale (5 letters)
  • F. A. P. Barnard (1 letter)
  • Jefferson Davis (88 letters)
  • Mrs. Varina H. Davis (5 letters)
  • Mrs. Sara A. Dorsey (15 letters)
  • J. Z. George (2 letters)
  • Bishop William Mercer Green, Sr. (11 letters)
  • J. H. Ingraham (6 letters)
  • S. D. Lee (8 letters)
  • William H. McCardle (1 letter)
  • H. D. Money (6 letters)
  • Charles S. Scott (3 letters)
  • Governor John M. Stone (1 letter)
  • Rev. H. M. Thompson (10 letters)
  • Harry T. Toulmin (2 letters)
  • E. C. Walthall (28 letters)

The correspondence and archives are distributed by date as follows:
n.d., 141 items
1832–1852, 52 items
1853–1858, 242 items
1859–1862, 487 items
1863–1867, 412 items
1868–1871, 396 items
1872–1875, 500 items
1876–1877, 410 items
1878, 275 items
1879–1881, 325 items
1882–1889, 262 items
1890–1932, 219 items

 

Series Identification:

Series Identification to be completed at a later date.

 

Box List:

Box 1
Box List to be completed at a later date.