Manuscripts
The largest part of the collection is the letters that Manley E. Rice wrote to his wife Elizabeth Jane Day Rice from Camp Randall, Madison, Wisconsin, New Orleans, Brownsville and Fort Brown, Texas, Fort Morgan and Fort Gaines, Alabama. The letters posted at Camp Randall describe the training and drills, or rather the lack thereof, veterans of the Vicksburg campaign returning from the battlefield, and former enslaved persons working at the camp. Rice also registered his unhappiness with the state legislators who had failed to appropriate more funds for medical help. The letters then follow Rice's journey from Wisconsin to Texas and Alabama, providing detailed accounts of camp life, his concerns for his family struggling to survive back home, eager anticipations of the "end of this Fratricidal Strife," description of the occupied country, war news, including the evacuation of Fort Brown, John Salmon Ford's operations at Fort Brownsville in the summer of 1864 and other operations in southern Texas, the battle for Mobile, Alabama, the peace negotiations, the Fourth of July, the first anniversary of the fall of Vicksburg celebration at Brownsville, and the hospital at Fort Gaines, including former enslaved persons employed there. Rice vividly describes the shock of the news of Lincoln's assassination that found him in New Orleans, noting that there were "several shot for rejoicing over the death of the President" and the shooting was "mostly done by Colored Troops." He also cited very tangible threats made against Confederate prisoners held at Fort Gaines. Also included are letters that George W. Day wrote to his sister describing the stay at Benton Barracks, the march to Springfield, Missouri, an expedition to Cross Hollows over Boston Mountains, the siege of Vicksburg, and duty at Navy Cove, near Fort Morgan, Alabama. Day recounted war news and rumors, his combat experience and camp life, including his courtship of "a negro girl" in Mississippi whom he intended to marry. Also included are letters by Frank Rice from Monticello, Iowa, San Francisco, Placerville, Carson City, and a few letters by Elizabeth Jane Day Rice, her sisters and in-laws, and other family members. The letters of William Sinks, Rice's brother-in-law, describe his farm in Wellington, Monroe County, Wisconsin. Also in the collection are miscellaneous manuscripts, including sundry recipes, a resolution of the Temple of Honor and Temperance, Boscobel, Wisconsin, on the passing of George M. Rice (1878), a "War Song of the 18th Regiment of Wisconsin Volunteers," by Emma Day, and a copy of the New Testament presented to M.E. Rice by David Black of Belltown, Wisconsin, February 27, 1864.
