Manuscripts
Correspondence and miscellaneous papers of George C. Harlan, chiefly covering his Civil War experience. The bulk of the collection consists of his letters to his mother Margaret Simmons Hart Howell Harlan and younger brother Edward S. Harlan. George C. Harlan regularly reported to his "Philadelphia headquarters" war news and rumors and recounted the details of his hospital work, including the numerous challenges he faced in his effort to keep his camp and field hospitals up to the "hospital standards of Pennsylvania," and described his patients, colleagues, commanders, fellow officers, soldiers, escaped enslaved persons, and Southern secessionists. His letters contain accounts of the military operations and events he witnessed, including the capture of blockade-runners, the rampage of the Confederate armored warships, the Monitor and the Merrimack, the Peninsular Campaign of 1862, and the siege of Petersburg in 1864. The letters written from Confederate prisons describe Harlan's capture and his medical work in Confederate hospitals. Also included are letters by Ely McClellan (1834-1893), H.W. Rivers, surgeon-in-chief of Kautz Cavalry Division, and others, relating to Harlan's capture and efforts made to secure his release; Harlan's military and professional records, including his Navy commissions signed by Gideon Welles and his muster-out roll; letters of recommendation; pension documents; his obituary, and resolutions by veteran and professional societies and associations on the occasion of his death in November 1909. Also included is a copy of Harlan's book Memoir of Dr. William Fisher Norris, published in 1902.
mssHM 69448-69628
