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Virginia Military Institute Archives
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Clayton G. Coleman Papers, mss 00021, Virginia Military Institute Archives, Lexington, Virginia.
The three letters in this collection were purchased from Chesapeake Galleries in April 1981. The autograph album was donated by Lucy Singleton Coleman in 1935.
A portion of the Coleman Papers are available in full-text format on the VMI Archives website at: http://www.vmi.edu/archives/manuscripts/ms021.html
Clayton Glanville Coleman, physician, was born at Roxbury, New Kent County, Virginia in 1840. He entered the Virginia Military Institute in July 1856 as a member of the Class of 1859, but did not graduate. After leaving VMI in 1858, he attended the University of Virginia and the Medical College of Virginia, from which he was graduated in March 1861. He served as Lt. Col., 23rd Virginia Infantry Regiment(1861-1862) and after September 1862 as a physician in the Confederate Medical Department. After the war, he continued the practice of medicine until 1871, when he became a Civil Engineer. He married Anna Sherrard Breedin, daugher of Enoch C. and Lucy Singleton Breedin, of Winchester Virginia. They had four children: Sherrard , Robert, Lucy, and Caroline. Clayton Coleman died October 7, 1908, in Little Rock, Arkansas.
The papers consist of three letters written to Coleman's sister Lucy during the Civil War, and an autograph album containing inscriptions written by his classmates at VMI, the University of Virginia, and the Medical College of Virginia, ca. 1858-61. The letter of September 17, 1862, from Winchester, Virginia, discusses the Battle of Antietam and caring for wounded; November 4, 1862, Winchester, Virginia, discusses hospitals and care of wounded, General George Steuart, movement of Longstreet's Corps, and other troop activity in the area; Feb 25, 1863 is largely personal, discussing his mother's death.
The album contains inscriptions and autographs of Coleman's classmates at the Virginia Military Institute.
Written at Winchester, Virginia. Coleman discusses
the Battle of Antietam and caring for wounded.
"....But the hottest battle of the war was
fought near Sharpsburg Md on the 17th inst. The
battle lasted all day and the loss was terrific on
both sides, the enemy fighting with more desperation
than ever before. We call it a victory and the
Yankees did so at first too; we held the ground and
both sides were too much worsted to renew the fight
next day. We fell back across the Potomac and the
enemy then commenced shelling us and boasted that
they had driven us across. They acknowledge the loss
of sixteen generals. We had two generals killed and
ten wounded. Winchester has been perfectly crowded
with the wounded---there having been more than 3000
here at one time and continually passing through. The
N. Y. Tribune says if we had followed them, their
army wd have been annihilated, and Gen. Lee says he
could have done so with 5000 more fresh troops. But
men had been marched so much and were so broken down,
that we had 60,000 stragglers...."
Written at Winchester, Virginia. Coleman discusses
hospitals and care of wounded, General George
Steuart, movement of Longstreet's Corps, and other
troop activity in the area.
"....I have had my hands full ever since, for
upon arriving here I was assigned to the charge of
two Hospitals--the N. S. P. Church and Lovett House
Hospitals, containing more than one hundred sick and
wounded, and a great many very bad cases. But
although I have been until the last few days so
busily engaged, I have only lost five patients out of
one hundred and eighty treated, while other hospitals
have lost a much greater proportion. Dr. McGuire told
me that he lost fourteen patients on night before
last at the Union Hospital! There are not more than
one thousand sick here now...."
Written from Jerdone Castle, Louisa County,
Virginia. A discussion of their mother's death.
"...reached home on Wednesday in time to be
present at the burial....She was so anxious to see
her children before she died. But it is said that
everything happens for the best and we should bear
everything with an even resignation."