Creator: Valentine, Herbert E. (Herbert Eugene), b. 1841.
Collection number: 4397
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Abstract: Herbert Eugene Valentine (1841-1917) was a private in Company F of the 23rd Massachusetts Volunteers, who served in the United States Army between 1861 and 1864 in eastern Virginia, North Carolina, and South Carolina. Diary, pencil and watercolor sketches, correspondence, newspaper clippings, and maps, all contained in two manuscript volumes of Herbert E. Valentine. Valentine’s diary discusses the subjects of many of his sketches. It also comments on church services, blacks he encountered, daily life among officers and enlisted men, Confederate deserters, life in Norfolk, Va., the career of General Charles Adam Heckman, and other matters. There are 184 sketches picturing towns, buildings, ships, bridges, fortifications, and everyday life at military bases. Locations with numerous sketches include Beaufort, Morehead City, and New Bern, N.C., and Hilton Head and Saint Helena Island, S.C. Seven color maps pertain to the operations of the 23rd Massachusetts Regiment in eastern North Carolina and Virginia. Correspondence consists of four letters relating to Valentine’s military activities in 1861. The Addition of July 2011 consists of a scrapbook of drawings, photographs, and lists of the activities and members of the 18th Army Corps, Department of North Carolina, compiled for General Charles Adam Heckman on his 70th birthday in 1892 by Herbert E. Valentine.
Repository: Southern Historical Collection
Collection Highlights: Entries in the diary record Valentine’s general observations of free blacks and slaves, including notes on music, dancing, and singing. Valentine noted in March 1864 that General Heckman praised a black cavalry regiment as more valuable to him than two white ones and that white soldiers resented it when the black regiment was merged into a formerly all white brigade.