Jonathan D. Hale papers

The voluminous correspondence, notebooks, affidavits, eyewitness testimonies, and published pamphlets of the family of Jonathan D. Hale contain a wealth of previously unknown information about the Civil War in Tennessee and Kentucky, including the organization of Unionist communities; women's contributions to the war effort; guerrilla warfare; the fate of Unionists' slaves; Reconstruction in East Tennessee and the rise of the Ku Klux Klan; and complicated and bitter politics of veterans' affairs in the wake of the Civil War. The letters, orders, reports, and communications written during Hale's services with General George H. Thomas (1816–1870) is a unique resource for historians of Civil War civilian scouts and guides, a topic that remains largely unexplored.

The papers of Jonathan Davis Hale and Pheroba Ann Chilton Hale chiefly contain correspondence between husband and wife, 1850s-1890s, concentrated 1861-1870. Includes 88 letters from Pheroba to Jonathan, 1862-1865; 12 letters from Pheroba to Jonathan, 1869-1870, detailing problems at the Mill after Jonathan fled the Klan; 62 letters from Jonathan to Pheroba; Jonathan's notebook, 1864-1872; 40 pages of memoranda and correspondence of Hale, 1862-1865, as General Thomas' Chief Scout; another Hale notebook containing signed testimonial statements and other commentary from those injured, charging as guerrillas, Champ Ferguson, Galen Elliott and Henry Sublett, 1865; plus other war related material including unrecorded pamphlets, etc, 1872-1892. There are also letters by General William S. Rosecrans as well as the Ku Klux Klan (threatening Hale's life for his role in Champ Ferguson's death). Other subjects include: Ulysses S. Grant, scouts and spies in the Civil War, etc.