Creator: Sparrow, Thomas, 1819-1884.
Collection number: 1878
View finding aid.
Abstract: Lawyer, North Carolina state legislator, and Confederate officer, of Washington (Beaufort County), N.C. Antebellum papers include legal and political correspondence and letters to Thomas Sparrow from colleagues and constituents while he was a member of the North Carolina General Assembly, 1858-1859. Correspondents include George E. Badger, David L. Swain, and John Stanly. There are references to several duels. Civil War papers, mostly 1861, include Sparrow’s letters to his wife and a diary kept while he was captain of Company A, 7th North Carolina Infantry (the “Washington Greys”), defending the Outer Banks of North Carolina and in prison at Fort Coumbus, Governor’s Island, New York Harbor, and Fort Warren, Boston, Mass. Also included are manuscript notes of an ordnance inspection of the Wilmington, N.C., defenses, 1863. Postwar items consist chiefly of a manuscript speech to freedmen, 1867, clippings about Sparrow’s management of the impeachment trial of North Carolina governor W. W. Holden, 1871, and a full account of Sparrow’s life.
Repository: Southern Historical Collection
Collection Highlights: Includes a record of the legal case State v. Dawson Wiggins , in which Wiggins, a black man, is charged with stealing on board a boat in 1855 (Folder 2).
Postwar items include a manuscript speech given to African Americans in 1867 (Folder 10). This item has been digitized and is available online. Click here to link to the finding aid for this collection and to access the digitized content.