I also found this in todays Corsicana Paper: Documents from 'War between the States' on display Friday By BETH GANSMANN/DAILY SUN STAFF Corsicana-area residents can view history on Friday evening at the Cook Center at Navarro College. The Pearce Collection is a collection of 2,200 Civil War letters, signatures, dairies, photographs and other papers related to the war. Navarro College will display the collection in conjunction with a reenactment of the Battle of Hodge Oaks Plantation. Dean of Learning Resources Dr. Darrell Beauchamp said the collection contains documents from well-known Civil War participants, as well as unknown, common soldiers. "We have a wide assortment of documents, including some signed by the greats of the war like Robert E. Lee, Abraham Lincoln and Ulysses S. Grant," Beauchamp said. "We also have a collection of 152 letters a soldier named L.D. Bradley wrote to his wife in Fairfield which tell of the conditions the common soldier faced." According to Beauchamp, one of the highlights of the collection includes carte-de-visite or visiting cards. These cards were left at residences when people visited one another and carried a photo of the owner. "We have these cards for Robert E. Lee, A.P. Hill and a variety of others," he said. "Some of the photos on the cards were taken by famous Civil War photographer Matthew Brady." Beauchamp said he hopes area residents will take advantage of this opportunity to view original Civil War documents. "Because of the size of the collection, we can only drag out the collection once in a while, but now we can take out the collection and let people view the original documents with supervision," Beauchamp said. "I will be there to supervise people, answer questions and mediate discussions about the collection." Charles S. and Peggy Pearce, Jr. began the collection in 1991 and they donated it to the college in 1995. The display hours on Friday are 7 to 9 p.m. and on Saturday from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. "It's a nice sized collection, one of the largest outside the deep South," Beauchamp said. "You don't expect to find a collection of Civil War collection in Corsicana, Texas." Local Links | Corsicana Chamber of Commerce || Navarro College | AmericaFaye@webtv.net See my web page at http://community.webtv.net/AmericafayeII/Reflections0