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Z 2204.000 SF
COLE (WILLIAM TROUP) NOTEBOOK

1864-1866
Original is restricted; reference photocopy must be used instead.

Biography/History:

William Troup Cole was born in Georgia on May 27, 1828. He was the son of Reuben and Celia Cole. The Cole family moved to Mississippi around 1834. They settled in newly formed Kemper County where they engaged in farming. William Troup Cole married in the early 1850s and continued farming in Kemper County. He and his wife, Mary, had at least eight children, including Reuben S. (b. ca. 1855), Jestina (b. ca. 1857), James E. (b. ca. 1858), Enoch S. (b. ca. 1859), Hunter (b. ca. 1866), Alice (b. ca. 1868), and twins John and Thomas (b. ca. 1871). Cole enlisted in Captain Benjamin F. Rush’s Company A, Thirty-fifth Regiment, Mississippi Infantry, Confederate States Army, on April 20, 1862. This regiment participated in the battle of Corinth in Alcorn County, Mississippi, on October 3 and 4 of 1862.

Cole was discharged on February 14, 1863, through the enlistment of a substitute who served at least until the fall of Vicksburg, Mississippi, on January 4, 1863. Although the official records do not confirm this, Cole’s diary implies that he rejoined his unit at a later date. Cole and his family were still farming in Kemper County in 1880. William Troup Cole died on September 2, 1897, and was interred at Liberty Baptist Church cemetery in Kemper County.

Scope and Content:

This collection consists of a notebook of William Troup Cole of Kemper County, Mississippi. It includes Cole’s observations on various Civil War events from 1864 to 1866. Some entries in the notebook record battles or travel routes associated with an unspecified unit, presumably the Thirty-fifth Regiment, Mississippi Infantry. Among the battles mentioned is that of New Hope Church, Georgia, from May 25 to June 4, 1864. Cole states that he was admitted to an unidentified military hospital on February 20, 1865, and later transferred to General Joseph Wheeler’s command. He also records the deaths of fellow soldiers. Interspersed are entries in which Cole mentions planting corn and cotton or ginning cotton. The notebook also contains personal accounts.

Series Identification:

  1. Diary. 1864-1866; n.d. 1 folder.

    Box 1, folder 1 (restricted original)

  2. Diary 1864-1866; n.d. 1 folder.

    Folder 1 (reference photocopy)