Administrative Information

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Preferred Citation

Civil War Diary of Robert Garlick Hill Kean, Accession #3070, Special Collections Dept., University of Virginia Library, Charlottesville, Va.

Acquisition Information

This collection was a gift to the Library from Randolph Kean of Springfield, Virginia on August 17, 1984.

Biographical/Historical Information

Robert Garlick Hill Kean, the son of John Vaughan and Caroline (Hill) Kean, was born in Caroline County, Virginia on 24 October 1828. His father was a schoolteacher and planter of modest means. After attending Episcopal High School in Alexandria, Virginia, Rappahannock Academy, and Concord Academy, Kean attended the University of Virginia, receiving his BA in 1852 and his MA the following year. He was admitted to the bar the following year and began practicing law in Lynchburg, Virginia. Kean was a vestryman in the Episcopal Church and a lifelong Democrat. He married Jane Nicholas Randolph, the daughter of Thomas J. Randolph, in 1854. In 1874, his first wife having died, he married Adelaide Prescott. Kean had five children by his marriages. An extreme states' rights advocate, he urged secession and joined the Virginia Home Guard at an early date. When the war began, he entered the Confederate Army as a private in the Southern Army of the Potomac, but after the battle of First Manassas he was made adjutant general to George W. Randolph, his uncle by marriage. When Randolph became secretary of war, Kean was named chief of the Bureau of War, succeeding Albert Taylor Bledsoe. He held this office for the remainder of the war, acting as office manager, exectutive secretary, and research assistant for the various secretaries of war. After the war, he returned to his law practice in Lynchburg. In 1881, he was city attorney in Lynchburg, and in 1890, he was made president of the Virginia Bar Association. He refused to run for political office and wanted to repay all of his war debts. He died in 1898.

Scope and Content Information

Robert Garlick Hill Kean's diary is in two bound volumes, covering the years 1861-1866; a typed transcript is also present. Kean mentions numerous prominent personalities of his day including: James A. Longstreet, Jefferson Davis, Pierre G.T. Beauregard, James A. Seddon, Braxton Bragg, Robert E. Lee, Joseph E. Johnston, William S. Rosecrans, Benjamin F. Butler, John Bell Hood, Ambrose E. Burnside, and Leonidas Polk. He discusses the battle of Gettysburg, the possible use of Negro slaves as soldiers, Abraham Lincoln's re-election, William T. Sherman's march through Georgia, the trial of Henry Wirz (the commandant of Andersonville Prison), the Hampton Roads Peace Conference, his experiences in the 11th Virginia regiment, Reconstruction, and other contemporary topics.

The diary was published in 1959 as Inside the Confederate Government: The Diary of Robert Garlick Hill Kean , edited by Edward Younger.