I came across this site and wanted to pass this on. I looked until I was blind and did not see where to purchase this film. Would some of you take a look and let me know if I missed something. http://www.lexis-nexis.com/cispubs/guides/womens_studies/southern_women/swmn a5.htm#other Thanks, Margie Comer Family Papers, 1860-1864, Barbour County, Alabama; also Georgia and Tennessee Description of the Collection This small collection consists of nineteen letters dated between 1860 and 1864 and undated to and from various members of the Comer family. The earliest letters are from Catharine Lucinda Comer in Cowikee, Barbour County, Alabama, to her son, Hugh Moss Comer, who was attending school in Warrior Stand, Alabama, describing family and neighborhood life by giving details of the family businesses and finances and news of the farm and slaves. In 1861, Hugh Moss Comer received a letter from schoolmaster J. A. Arnold describing his new school's rates, living arrangements, and course of study. Hugh Moss Comer then enrolled in Arnold's school in Polk County, Georgia, where he continued to receive letters from his mother and his brothers, keeping him informed on the family and neighborhood and mentioning the advent of the Civil War. During the Civil War, Catharine Lucinda Comer received two undated letters from her brother, P. A. Drewry, who listed the wounded soldiers in the regiment from their neighborhood and kept her informed about the condition of her son, John Wallace Comer, also a Confederate soldier. John Wallace Comer wrote several letters to his mother and his sister, describing the death of his corps commander, Leonidas Polk, at Pine Mountain, Georgia; his own wound and recovery; and the heavy fighting during the New Hope Church campaign in Georgia in 1864. A family friend also wrote to the Comer family in 1862, describing the plight of the Army of Tennessee and criticizing General Braxton Bragg's Kentucky campaign ("I don't think that ole Brag ever ought to have control of anything withought it was som ole woman chickens. This was mor mens lives lost by that retreat than if we had fought the yankes"). Undated items include a poem about a faithless sweetheart and a letter from Hugh Moss Comer to Catharine Lucinda Comer about having shoes made for him. There is also a photograph of John Wallace Comer in a Civil War uniform with his slave, Burrell. Biographical Note John Fletcher Comer (1811-1858) was a cotton planter and owner of a lumber yard and corn mill in Barbour County, Alabama. He married Catharine Lucinda Drewry (d. 1898) in 1841, and they had six sons: Hugh Moss Comer (1842-1900); John Wallace Comer (1845-1919); St. George Legare Comer (1847-1870), who was governor of Alabama; Braxton Bragg Comer (1848-1919) who was a U.S. senator and Alabama governor; John Fletcher Comer, Jr. (1854-1927); and Edward Trippe Comer (1856-1927). There was also at least one daughter (probably named Corinne) in the family. Following John Fletcher Comer's death in 1858, the family continued farming and operating the corn mill and lumber yard. During the Civil War, John Wallace Comer served in the reserves of the Army of Tennessee. N. B. Related collections among the holdings of the Southern Historical Collection include the Braxton Bragg Comer Papers; the Laura Beecher Comer Papers; and the John Fletcher Comer Journal. Of these, the Laura Beecher Comer Papers follows this collection. Laura Beecher Comer Papers, 1862-1899, Barbour County, Alabama; also Connecticut, Georgia, and Europe Description of the Collection This small collection includes three diaries of Laura Beecher Comer; six letters from Laura to her Comer relatives in Alabama; and a newspaper clipping about Windsor Castle in England. The diaries document Laura's everyday activities in Columbus, Georgia, and her thoughts and emotions on a variety of topics, including religion and family relationships, her unhappy marriage and distrust of humanity, and her problems with family servants, both slaves and freedmen. Other diary entries describe Laura's travels in Alabama, the northeast United States, and Europe and describe the settlement of her husband's estate and sale of his cotton plantations. The letters are chiefly concerned with news about the activities of Comer family members in Alabama. The collection is arranged as follows: Series 1. Diaries and Series 2. Correspondence and Other Items. Biographical Note Laura Beecher Comer was born in New Haven, Connecticut, in 1817, the daughter of Lysias Beecher and Lucy Tolles Beecher and the niece of prominent clergyman Henry Ward Beecher. Following her first marriage to a Mr. Hayes, she moved south to open a school for girls. In 1848, she married James Comer (1797-1864), a cotton planter in Alabama. They purchased a house in Columbus, Georgia, in 1853, where Laura lived until her death on 5 January 1900. Series 1. Diaries, 1862-1873 Volume 1: January 1862-April 1863 comprises Laura Beecher Comer's diary, with almost daily entries recording her everyday life, household management, and finances; her thoughts on a variety of topics, including religious sentiments; her often cantankerous comments on human nature; complaints about her unhappy marriage and her relationships with various friends and relatives; and her troubles with family slaves. There are also a few scattered entries on national politics and the Civil War and descriptions of travel in Alabama. Volume 2: September 1866-July 1868 comprises her diary after the Civil War and her husband's death in 1864. Many of the themes of the first volume are continued in the diary entries, including her thoughts on religion and family relationships and activities, her general depression and mistrust of humanity, and her continuing problems with servants--now freedmen. The diary also contains descriptions of Laura's travels in Virginia, Washington, D.C., New York, and Connecticut and of her visits to her husband's cotton plantations in Alabama, as she attempted to settle his estate and sell the plantations. Volume 3: June 1872-December 1873 comprises her diary entries with topics similar to the previous volumes. Topics include news of friends and family, descriptions of daily life, and comments on religion. A great portion of the volume consists of accounts of Laura's travels to visit her family in New York and Connecticut and of her voyage by ship to Europe, including detailed descriptions of her encounters with natives and her visits to tourist attractions in London, Paris, Switzerland, Italy, Germany, and Edinburgh. Series 2. Correspondence and Other Items, 1892-1899 This series comprises six letters, 1896-1899, from Laura Beecher Comer to her "Cousin Lilla," wife of Hugh Moss Comer, in Alabama, on social news and family concerns and a newspaper clipping, 11 September 1892, about Windsor Castle in Windsor, England. N. B. Related collections among the holdings of the Southern Historical Collection include the Braxton Bragg Comer Papers, the Comer Family Papers, and the John Fletcher Comer Journal. Of these, the Comer Family Papers follows this collection. Seen through women's eyes, nineteenth-century southern social history takes on new dimensions. Subjects that were of only passing interest when historians depended on documents created by men now move to center stage. Women's letters dwell heavily on illness, pregnancy, and childbirth. From them we can learn what it is like to live in a society in which very few diseases are well understood, in which death is common in all age groups, and in which infant mortality is an accepted fact of life. A woman of forty-three, writing in 1851, observed that her father, mother, four sisters, three brothers, and two infants were all dead, and except for her father, none had reached the age of thirty-six.2