James Chaplin Beecher was the son of Lyman Beecher. He joined the United States Army, becoming a colonel of the First North Carolina Colored Volunteers, who fought at Fort Sumpter and in Florida during the Civil War. He praised the courage and ability of his African American troops. His correspondence with his military commanders reveals his impatience and lack of confidence in the operation of the Freedmen's Bureau, the treatment of the Refugee Freedmen, and the policy of distribution of abandoned plantations. Two letters to Charles Sumner deal with the problems of Reconstruction. This collection has been digitized and is available online through the finding aid.

Thomas B. Fox Sr. and his wife, Feroline Walley Pierce Fox, had five children. Three—Charles A., Thomas B. Jr., and John A.—enlisted in the US Army during the Civil War. Charles was a major in the 55th Regiment, Massachusetts Infantry, and Thomas Jr. and John served with the 2nd Regiment, Massachusetts Infantry. Thomas Sr. was an ordained minister who worked with the US Sanitary Commission and served the surgeon general of Massachusetts by ministering to sick and wounded soldiers within the camps. This collection includes correspondence among the members of the Fox family during the war.

Reeves came from a prominent family in Delaware. She married Isaac Stockton Keith Reeves, who graduated from the United States Military Academy at West Point in the class of 1838 and served in the army until his death in 1851. Reeves's pro-Southern sympathies led her to move to Arkansas during the Civil War. She traveled by boat to Virginia and by train to Tennessee, before settling in a home near Lake Chicot with her children. This collection consists of a bound manuscript diary recording her thoughts and feelings, travels, local customs, neighbors and friends, attitudes towards politics, wartime scarcities, interactions with soldiers, housekeeping concerns, and more. The diary has been digitized and is available online.

Known as the "Angel of the Shenandoah," Jessie Hainning Rupert was principal of the Ann Smith Academy in Lexington, Virginia, before moving to New Market, Virginia, where she directed the New Market Female Seminary. As an opponent of slavery and a Union sympathizer, she was ostracized by the townspeople; nevertheless she married Solomon P. Rupert (1823-1867) and throughout the Civil War provided food, shelter, and medical care to soldiers and civilians on both sides of the conflict. After the war she established the Cottage Institute, a boarding and day school for white children, and Woodworth Cottage Institute, a night school for black students.