Biography:

William T. Walthall

William T. Walthall, son of Henry and Elizabeth Jones Walthall, was born in Chesterfield County, Virginia, on July 2, 1820. He worked as a professor of mathematics in the United States Navy from 1842 to 1843, and he was also educated for the bar but never practiced law.

Walthall married Mary Brooks Dorr, daughter of Ebenezer and Sarah Allen Brooks of Pensacola, Florida, on January 27, 1849. He entered the Confederate Army in 1861 as a member of the Southern Foresters, a company of Mobile, Alabama, volunteers that was organized by Walthall. The company was merged with the Twelfth Regiment, Alabama Infantry, in which Walthall served as a captain until July 1861, when he was commissioned as a major and assistant adjutant general on the general staff of the Confederate Army. Walthall married his late wife’s sister, Anna Worcester Dorr, on September 27, 1863.

Following the Civil War, Walthall worked as associate editor of the Mobile Register. In 1870, he worked as an agent for the Carolina Life Insurance Company, of which Jefferson Davis was president. Walthall left his position as editor and part owner of the Mobile Cycle in 1876 to assist Jefferson Davis with the manuscript of The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government that was published in 1881.

From 1888 to 1891, Walthall served as United States consul in Demerara, British Guiana. Walthall returned to Vicksburg, Mississippi, where he lived until his death on May 15, 1899.

 

Scope and Content:

These papers consist of correspondence; business contracts and papers; diaries; scrapbooks and newspaper clippings; financial books; letter record books and a letter book; weather records; commonplace and notebooks; photographs; publications and printed material; and miscellaneous papers of William T. Walthall and family. The early correspondence in Virginia was between members of the Walthall family. Later correspondence was written while Walthall lived in Mobile, Alabama, and Pensacola, Florida. During the years that Walthall lived in Mississippi, the correspondence included General Wirt Adams, Jefferson Davis, Admiral Raphael Semmes, General J. A. Early, L. Q. C. Lamar, Col. W. Preston Johnston, Edward Livingston of New Orleans, J. W. Dorr of Pensacola, and the editors of "Our Continent" and D. Appleton and Company. There is also correspondence pertaining to the Old Ladies Home of Jackson (1931-1941) of which Maud Walthall was field secretary, and correspondence pertaining to the Commission of Interracial Cooperation (1942-1943) on which Flora B. Walthall served. In addition, there are contracts and papers pertaining to the Fidelity Mutual Life Insurance Company (1926-1932). There are numerous diaries of William T. Walthall, A. C. Walthall, F. H. Walthall, and Flora B. Walthall (1841-1943), some of which are kept in memorandum or other notebooks. The papers contain both scrapbooks of newspaper clippings (1841-1889) and loose newsclippings (1816-1933, n.d.), as well as photographs and a photograph album. There are cashbooks and financial journals; seven records of letters written, and one letter book; weather records, commonplace books, and notebooks, including an 1833 notebook on mathematics. In addition, there are miscellaneous publications and printed materials, including an issue of Southern Literary Messenger; church bulletins; atlases; and a partial volume on Civil War regiments. The miscellaneous material includes papers relating to Walthall’s service as United States consul in British Guiana; financial records; greeting and calling cards; postcards; artwork; sheet music; and maps.

 

Box List:

Box 1: Correspondence (November 19, 1803 - September 28, 1850) 
Box 2: Correspondence (October 12, 1850 - August 30, 1853) 
Box 3: Correspondence (September 1, 1853 - December 25, 1856) 
Box 4: Correspondence (January 18, 1857 - March 31, 1861) 
Box 5: Correspondence (April 4, 1861 - July 12, 1862) 
Box 6: Correspondence (August 1, 1862 - March 17, 1867) 
Box 7: Correspondence (April 7, 1867 - April 29, 1875) 
Box 8: Correspondence (May 1, 1875 - May 29, 1880) 
Box 9: Correspondence (June 6, 1880 - August 6, 1884) 
Box 10: Correspondence (September 4, 1884 - December 28, 1888) 
Box 11: Correspondence (January 2, 1889 - July 13, 1891) 
Box 12: Correspondence (July 14, 1891 - March 23, 1899) 
Box 13: Correspondence (July 2, 1900 - September 17, 1916) 
Box 14: Correspondence (January 1, 1917 - December 25, 1922) 
Box 15: Correspondence (February 6, 1923 - December 28, 1925) 
Box 16: Correspondence (January 2, 1926 - September 18, 1931) 
Box 17: Correspondence (October 2, 1931 - August 30, 1936) 
Box 18: Correspondence (September 1, 1936 - February 29, 1940) 
Box 19: Correspondence (March 13, 1940 - June 10, 1955) 
Box 20: Correspondence (n.d.) 
Box 21: Correspondence (n.d.) 
Box 22: Correspondence (n.d.) 
Box 23: Papers, Old Ladies Home (1931-1941); Commission on Interracial Cooperation (1942-1943) 
Box 24: Contracts & papers, Fidelity Mutual Life Ins. Co. (1926-1932) 
Box 25: Two scrapbooks of newspaper cuttings (December 9, 1845-August 28, 1859; October 24, 1880-April 29, 1883) 
Box 26: Two scrapbooks of newspaper cuttings (Jan. 1858-July 1860; December 14, 1860-June 7, 1861) 
Box 27: Two scrapbooks of newspaper cuttings (1858-December 1860; n.d.) 
Box 28: Two scrapbooks of newspaper cuttings (July 1877-October 1880; August 31, 1887-May 1889) 
Box 29: Two scrapbooks of newspaper cuttings (September 1880-May 1883; 1885-1889) 
Box 30: Two scrapbooks of newspaper cuttings (Nov. 6, 1847-ca. 1858; May 2, 1883-Dec. 30, 1884) 
Box 31: Thirteen (13) diaries (1849-1886) 
Box 32: Thirteen (13) diaries (1849-1862) 
Box 33: Ten (10) diaries (1841 - November, 1849) 
Box 34: Eleven (11) diaries (1887-1898) 
Box 35: Photographs and photograph album 
Box 36: Miscellaneous materials, including bills; receipts; newspaper clippings (1816-1933; n.d.); printed material 
Box 37: Miscellaneous materials, including consular papers and a map of British Guiana; cancelled checks; church bulletins; pressed flowers and artwork; a memento; miscellaneous greeting and calling cards; photographs; postcards; Chinese playing cards; a memorandum book; a traced map of Fort Louis on the Mobile river; poetry; and an 1833 mathematics notebook 
Box 38: Atlases, 1848-1849; photographs; miscellaneous printed material; sheet music 
Box 39: Thirty-two (32) diaries (ca. 1845-1943) 
Box 40: Southern Literary Messenger (January 1862); an account book; a 1932 diary; a notebook (January 4, 1915-October 10, 1921); a partial volume on Civil War regiments 
Box 41: One (1) diary (June 23, 1888-January 31, 1889; an 1831 atlas, a 1935 desk calendar (with diary entries) 
Box 42: Ten (10) cashbooks and financial journals (1848-1864; 1916-1936) 
Box 43: Seven (7) letter record books (1854-1872, 1891-1895); one (1) journal (1870) and letter book (1872); One (1) weather report book (1877); two (2) weather report and diary books (1884, 1892); one (1) commonplace book (1837-1853); one (1) notes and commonplace book (July 5, 1845)