Scope and Contents From the Collection:

This collection includes correspondence while Jamison was Secretary of War of South Carolina, 1861; scattered letters and papers pertaining to the South Carolina Secession Convention of which he was president, and papers related to his tenure as presiding judge of the military court of Gen. Beauregard's Corps, 1862-1864. Robert Woodward Barnwell and Lawrence Massillon Keitt are among the correspondents.

Scope and Contents Folder two contains letters and documents from 1860 including reports from officers stationed in forts in and around Charleston harbor (SC). The primary subjects of correspondence include military preparedness, general defenses, and vulnerabilities of the various forts. Some documents show early Confederate preparations for attacking Fort Sumter, which at that point remained in possession of the United States. This folder also includes applications for the South Carolina state militia from...

Scope and Contents Folder three contains correspondence from January 1861. The primary correspondence is to and from Jamison and include military application letters and reports on surveys, maintenance, and activity taking place within the forts of Charleston harbor. Some of these letters contain Confederate plans for attacking Fort Sumter, two of which propose poisoning the water and attacking directly by fortified raft. A highlight is a letter from Senator Henry M. Rice of Minnesota to South Carolina senator...

Scope and Contents Folder four contains documents and letters from February 1861 as Confederate South Carolinians prepared for an attack on Fort Sumter. The folder includes a letter from General Arthur Manigault South Carolina’s Ordnance Bureau urging that supplies be sent to the forts in Charleston harbor. Also included are numerous military reports related to the pending attack on Fort Sumter, placement of military regiments, and construction of forts and batteries. Other interesting contents from this...

Scope and Contents Folder five contains documents and correspondence from March 1861. Included is another letter concerning an enslaved man, Arthur or Thomas Lynch [see folders three and four]; a detailed letter to South Carolina’s governor Francis Pickens from Lucius Quinton Washington, a distant relative of George Washington, from Washington DC on the national political situation in the wake of President Abraham Lincoln’s inaugural speech and including strategy and intelligence on Fort Sumter and Pensacola...

Scope and Contents Folder six contains documents and correspondence from April to December of 1861. Included in this folder are reports of the Provisional Army of the Confederate States after the attack on Fort Sumter assessing the fort’s damage and detailing the evacuation of the United States soldiers stationed there during the siege. Other important documents include a contract for enlisted members of a South Carolina militia company of German immigrants; David F. Jamison’s letter of resignation as South...

Scope and Contents

This collection includes correspondence while Jamison was Secretary of War of South Carolina, 1861; scattered letters and papers pertaining to the South Carolina Secession Convention of which he was president, and papers related to his tenure as presiding judge of the military court of Gen. Beauregard's Corps, 1862-1864. Robert Woodward Barnwell and Lawrence Massillon Keitt are among the correspondents.

Scope and Contents

Folder seven contains David F. Jamison’s personal copies of government ordinances enacted during his time as Confederate provost marshal and letters from Jamison’s tenure as head of South Carolina’s secession convention.

Scope and Contents

Folder eight contains documents concerning the Confederate military court of South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida in 1863 and includes court cases on soldier desertions some with David F. Jamison’s commentary. Included is an interesting petition for the discharge of South Carolina Confederate soldier William Fender, a shoemaker, requesting his return to his home in Barnwell, South Carolina for its desperate lack of shoes.

Scope and Contents Folder nine contains documents concerning the Confederate military court of South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida in 1864 including a multipage fragment of a running list of military courts martial cases listing defendant’s names, charges, specific details of the charge, and witnesses. There are two letters by Jamison concerning court martial procedure. Also included are brief essays presumably in Jamison’s hand, titled “The Origins of Artillery”, “New trial”, and “The Military Courts of the...

Scope and Contents Folder ten contains miscellaneous four undated items or fragments of papers. Included is a narrative description of a floating structure for the defense of Charleston Harbor, a resolution for filling vacancies in the South Carolina or Confederate provisional congress; a proclamation giving the governor power to commission officers of coastal military companies; a letter from Thomas J. Glover asking for the Edisto rifles to be part of the infantry; and a letter fragment concerning political...