Alfred Dexter Morgan recorded his experiences in the 17th Illinois Cavalry from 1864 to 1865. Morgan and his company saw duty primarily in Missouri, but were also stationed in Kansas at the end of the war. His diary documents encounters with Bloody Bill Anderson and Confederate General Sterling Price, during his 1864 raid into Missouri. The collection consists of two diaries. The second diary concludes in 1866, after Morgan returns home.

The Hunter-Hagler collection provides rare documentation on how women endured the War in the Ozarks. The letters are written by Elizabeth Hunter and her daughters, Priscilla A. Hunter and Charlotte Elizabeth (Hunter) Hagler. The Hunters write Margaret Hunter Newberry, who married and left the family farm. The letters describe how the Hunter family survived harsh winters, sold goods at the market, and provide graphic details of murder, theft and destruction caused by bushwhackers in Jasper and Lawrence Counties. Perpetual violence caused the Hunter family to leave their beloved homestead, and flee to Illinois in late 1864. Elizabeth wrote her daughter affectionately and often, and through these letters Elizabeth relates the brutal conditions in which the family endured.

Lyman Gibson Bennett enlisted in the 36th Illinois Infantry in 1861. Prior to the War he trained as a surveyor and civil engineer, working for the railroad. The military utilized Bennett’s skills as a cartographer, and assigned him to survey battlefields, road systems, and fortifications. Bennett’s diaries document his daily duties as both a soldier and an engineer for the military. His regiment participated in the Battle of Pea Ridge, which he describes in vivid detail. Bennett was discharged from the military in August 1864.

In 1865, Bennett joined the engineering department of General Samuel R. Curtis as a civilian. He mapped the 1864 battlefields of Sterling Price’s Missouri Expedition. Bennett was then assigned to survey fortifications in Nebraska and Colorado, and eventually served as an engineering officer on the Powder River Expedition of 1865. Bennett’s diaries provide colorful insight to his perception of the Ozarks and its inhabitants.

John H. Utz served under General Sterling Price, and participated in the Battles of Lexington and Pea Ridge. Utz returned home after his “six months service” was up, and took the oath of allegiance to the Union sometime in 1862. He married Sarah Elizabeth (“Sallie”) Duncan in February 1863, and their first child was born in July 1864. In the fall of 1864, Utz attempted to join Sterling Price in his expedition through Missouri, which resulted in his imprisonment.

The John H. Utz collection is a series of sixty plus letters compiled by his descendents. The letters were self-published by the family in Biographical Sketches of the Bartlett Marshall Duncan and Henry Utz Families. Very limited copies of the book are available to the public, and the letters in the collection are reproduced as they were printed in the book. This collection depicts Utz experiences as a prisoner of war from 1864 through 1865

John Harvey Doran, a carpenter in Springfield, Missouri kept a journal of his daily activities from August 13, 1864 through September 24, 1865. Doran had steady business building shelves, coffins, framing houses, and other general construction jobs. The journal entries include business notes, news from family and friends, and information about Doran’s brief service in the Enrolled Missouri Militia.