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Contact information: https://hdl.loc.gov/loc.mss/mss.contact
Catalog Record: https://lccn.loc.gov/mm93081878
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 Aaron Burton Levisee, lawyer, educator, Louisiana state legislator, and Confederate soldier, were given to the Library of Congress by Marion Levisee Cotter in 1992.
The papers of Aaron Burton Levisee were arranged and described by Joseph K. Brooks in 1995. The finding aid was revised in 2009. The finding aid was updated in 2023 by Maria Farmer as part of a division-wide remediation project by the Inclusive Description Working Group.
The status of copyright in the unpublished writings of Aaron Burton Levisee is governed by the Copyright Law of the United States (Title 17, U.S.C.).
The papers of Aaron Burton Levisee 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, Aaron Burton Levisee Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.
The papers of Aaron Burton Levisee (1821-1907) span the years 1847-1992 and consist mainly of diaries Levisee kept between 1847 and 1895. In 1881 Levisee wrote a lengthy summary of his life and activities beginning with 1840. It commences on page ninety seven of volume four. The summary, termed "The Annals" by Levisee, was transcribed by his great-granddaughter, Marion Levisee Cotter.
The diaries document Levisee's life and career in several states and regions. Born and raised in Ohio and educated at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, he moved to the South before the Civil War, teaching school in Alabama and practicing law in Louisiana. He continued his law practice in Shreveport, Louisiana, early in the war, later serving in the Confederate army on the staff of the inspector general in the Trans-Mississippi Department.
During the Reconstruction era, he was elected successively as a judge and state legislator from the district that includes Shreveport. Levisee presided over the trial of Ku Klux Klan members who murdered a Black man for casting a vote for Ulysses S. Grant in the 1868 presidential election. He assumed his duties as a legislator in 1874 at the height of an armed conflict between Republican supporters and the White League over control of the state legislature.
Levisee, a Republican elector for Louisiana during the 1876 presidential contest, later pursued careers as an Internal Revenue Service agent, rancher, farmer, and lawyer in the Pacific Northwest, California, and South Dakota.
This collection is arranged alphabetically by type of material.