Converted to EAD3 : Encoded Archival Description (EAD), Version 3 : Release: 1.1.1 : Release Date: 2019-12-16. Validating against latest version of schema.
Contact information: http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.mss/mss.contact
Catalog Record: https://lccn.loc.gov/mm2002084936
Collection material in English
The following terms have been used to index the description of this collection in the LC Catalog. They are grouped by name of person or organization, by subject or location, and by occupation and listed alphabetically.
The papers of the Henry L. Abbot family were given to the Library of Congress by Roger Anderson in 2002. Additional material was purchased in 2003.
Daguerreotypes, prints, an oil painting, and most photographs have been transferred to the Library's Prints and Photographs Division where they are identified as part of these papers.
In addition to Abbot’s diaries and papers held in the Houghton Library at Harvard University, other related material is also at the Oregon Historical Society in Portland.
The status of copyright in the unpublished writings of members of the Henry L. Abbot family is governed by the Copyright Law of the United States (Title 17, U.S.C.).
The papers of Henry L. Abbot Family are open to research. Researchers are advised to contact the Manuscript Reading Room prior to visiting. Many collections are stored off-site and advance notice is needed to retrieve these items for research use.
Researchers wishing to cite this collection should include the following information: Container number, Henry L. Abbot Family Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.
The papers of the family of Henry Larcom Abbot (1831-1927) span the years 1770-2001, with the bulk of the material concentrated in the period 1832-1870. Correspondence, diaries, memoirs, military records, financial and legal records, genealogical material, photographs, writings, clippings, and mementos comprise the major part of the collection. The material is arranged alphabetically by type of material or name of creator and chronologically thereunder. Artifacts and oversize material are arranged and described according to the containers and folders from which the items were removed.
Correspondence, diaries, and memoirs of Henry L. Abbot and other family members constitute the core of the collection. Most of the letters were exchanged between Abbot and his wife, Mary Susan (“Susie”) Everett Abbot, and mother, Fanny Larcom Abbot, and reflect primarily his service in the Union army and family and social activities in Massachusetts during the Civil War. A graduate of the United States Military Academy and a career officer in the United States Army Corps of Engineers, Abbot served as a topographical engineer and Union officer throughout the war and earned numerous promotions. He was wounded at the First Battle of Bull Run, assisted with the design and construction of fortifications around the city of Washington, and served in the Peninsular Campaign. In 1863, he was commissioned colonel commanding the First Connecticut Artillery volunteers and led the siege artillery for the Union armies operating against Petersburg and Richmond, Virginia, in 1864-1865. In his letters, Abbot discreetly described movements of the army, concerns about Abraham Lincoln’s administration, African-American soldiers, religion, and Union commanders. His caution was due not only to military exigencies but also to his wife’s admonitions concerning his political differences with her family, apparently ardent abolitionists, who also had access to his letters. Abbot wrote of his achievements and occasionally of the technology of the ordnance he commanded such as larger projectiles that weighed as “much as the cannon of ten years ago.” In a letter dated July 16, 1864, his father Joseph Hale Abbot, a mathematics professor and school principal in Beverly, Massachusetts, discussed causes of the war, Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation, Ulysses S. Grant’s situation in Virginia, and the presidential aspirations of General George McClellan.
Letters from Henry L. Abbot’s mother and wife focus on family matters and the childhood activities of his son Frederic V. Abbot. Letters also discuss the death of Abbot’s brother Edward Stanley Abbot in action at Gettysburg in 1863 and social receptions in Washington, D.C., in the 1850s, including a description of William Wilson Corcoran’s greenhouse and gallery of paintings.
Diaries and memoirs in the collection include reminiscences by Emily Everett, Henry L. Abbot’s mother-in-law. A resident of Cambridge, Massachusetts, her memoirs span most of the nineteenth century with family vignettes such as helping her grandfather adjust his powdered wigs, town personalities, childhood adventures, births, and deaths. The collection also contains a journal by Abbot’s mother recording his childhood development from 1832 to 1840 and photocopies of Abbot’s Civil War diaries for 1864-1865, including his detailed index to his diaries now in the Houghton Library of Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Mementos, ships logs, maps, and biographical material comprise a file
pertaining to Henry Larcom, shipmaster and Abbot’s maternal grandfather. Most
of the items relate to Larcom’s survival of the wreck of the
Although Henry L. Abbot published extensively in various technical journals and books, only a few of his writings are contained in the collection . His survey of the Mississippi River delta,
The collection is arranged alphabetically by type of material or name of creator and chronologically thereunder. Artifacts and oversize material are arranged and described according to the containers and folders from which the items were removed.
Catalog Record: https://lccn.loc.gov/mm2002084936