\u201cThis exhibit deals with several issues,\u201d said Jennifer Ford, head of UM archives and special collections. \u201cIt goes chronologically from Secession to 1865 and Reconstruction.\u201d<\/p>\n
The collection covers many topics including camp life, combat, prisons, slavery, the university and the war, people, hospitals and women in the home front. The exhibit even displays hair jewelry from the era and Civil War medical books.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think this exhibit offers a fresh perspective on Mississippi and the American Civil War,\u201d Ford sad.<\/p>\n
One notable item in the exhibit is a letter from a slave who was attempting to write his family history in two pages.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s very rare to find a slave letter,\u201d Ford said.<\/p>\n
Another item is a letter from William Nelson, a university student who fought with the 9th Mississippi Division. He wrote about Lincoln\u2019s election and how it would cause a disillusion of the Union. Ford has published a book about his letters, \u201cThe Hour of Our Nation\u2019s Agony: The Civil War Letters of Lt. William Cowper Nelson.\u201d<\/p>\n
This collection is the first Civil War exhibit put together by UM Archives and Special Collections. It took about two months to assemble, and most of the items in the collection were donated.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think this exhibit is a wonderful way to learn something about a very important part of our history and one that our state certainly played a major role in and suffered major losses,\u201d said Julia Rholes, dean of university libraries.<\/p>\n
The collection can be viewed on the third floor of the J.D. Williams Library in room 318. The exhibit will be open to the public until September of 2011.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
OXFORD, Miss. \u2013 A new exhibit at the J.D. Williams Library titled, \u201c\u2018This Fiery Trial\u2019: An Exhibit on Mississippi and the American Civil War,\u201d features a large collection of Civil War artifacts and documents.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[222],"tags":[347],"yoast_head":"\n