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Manuscripts

Manley Ebenezer Rice papers, (bulk 1863-1865)

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Description
The largest part of the collection is 57 letters that Manley E. Rice wrote to his wife Elizabeth Jane Day Rice from Camp Randall, (Madison, Wis.), New Orleans (April and May 1864), Brownsville and Fort Brown, Tex. (May-- July 1864), Fort Morgan, Ala. (1864, Augus--October), and Fort Gaines, Ala.(1864, Nov. -- 1865, June). The letters posted at Camp Randall describe the training and drills, (or rather the lack of thereof), veterans of the Vicksburg campaign returning from the battlefield, and former slaves working at the camp. Rice also registered his unhappiness with the state legislators who had failed to appropriate more funds for medical help and his astonishment upon hearing a woman temperance orator, a Mrs. Hobert, "addressing five or six hundred men." 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, Farragut's capture of the ironclad ram Tennessee, the Franklin Nashville Campaign, the battle for Mobile, Ala., and the peace negotiations), the Fourth July and the first anniversary of the fall of Vicksburg celebration at Brownsville, and the hospital at Fort Gaines, including former slaves 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.) Rice recounts a chase that the federal ships gave to a Confederate ram, the William. H. Webb that was trying to escape to Havana. (Rice who was accompanying hospital patients to New Orleans, was onboard of one of the ships, the Hollyhock).
Type
Manuscripts(Opens in new tab)
Production date
1862-1882.
Call number
mssHM 69708-69803
Creator
Rice, Manley Ebenezer (1833-1922)(Opens in new tab)
Additional description
Also, miscellaneous manuscripts, including sundry recipes, a resolution of the Temple of Honor and Temperance (Boscobel, Wis.) on the passing of George M. Rice (1878), a "War Song of the 18th Regiment of Wisconsin Volunteers," by Emma Day, a photograph of Frank Rice, and a copy of the New Testament zpresented to M.E. Rice by David Black of Belltown, Wisconsin Feb. 27, 1864."
Provenance
Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Roy Stevens, Apr. 3, 2006.
Associated people
Day, George W., (1840-)
Rice, Elizabeth Jane Day, (1833-1914.)
Rice, Frank, (1837-1916.)
Sinks, William H.
Day (Family)
Rice (Family)
Find out more
View in the Library catalog(Opens in new tab)

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