Auburn's growing library of Civil War documents recently received one of its biggest donations, a collection of documents including a diary of one of Abraham Lincoln's closest allies.
Members of the Nancy Eckert Galbreath family donated a collection of documents from Thomas T. Eckert to the University libraries July 19. The centerpiece of the donation is Eckert's diary from 1865, the final year of the Civil War.
Eckert was the general superintendent of the military telegraph during the war and a confidant of both President Lincoln and Secretary of War Edwin Stanton. Noted for his organizational skills, Eckert was granted the rank of brigadier general of volunteers and later became assistant secretary of war.
The Ohio native was at Lincoln's bedside the night he was assassinated, and he detailed this monumental event in American history in his diary.
"Seven o'clock 22 minutes, our beloved president Abraham Lincoln breathed his last," Eckert wrote April 15, 1865. "I have been on duty at his bed side all night with the Secretary of War Edwin Stanton. My heart is too sad for expression."
The diary, along with several commissions from Eckert's career, can also be found online through the libraries' Special Collections and Archives Department.The Office of Development's Hank Galbreath, whose mother was the great-great granddaughter of Eckert, said parts of the collection had been available at the library through digital scanning, but a similar donation earlier this year played a part in the family's decision to donate the physical documents.
"(The collection) has been on microfiche in the library, I think, for a decade... maybe a decade and a half," Galbreath said. "As optical scanners became more prevalent, I brought it back two or three years ago and had it scanned for better clarity.
"A thing that played a part in the donation was the Hampton Roads Collection being donated to the library a while back. Thomas T. Eckert had several letters in there and played a part in the Hampton Roads peace efforts."
The Hampton Roads collection, which is comprised of documents featured in the 2012 movie "Lincoln," came to the libraries in February. In May, the libraries accepted another collection which included a letter signed by the captain of the USS Alabama, a Confederate raider ship.
Galbreath said he hopes his family's donation to the libraries will encourage other donations to Auburn's growing collection of Civil War documents.
"That collection had been in a safety deposit box for years," Galbreath said. "One could say, 'Well, you gave it to the library in a digital format,' but I personally hope this donation would give others pause to think, 'You know, maybe these Civil War letters we've had in our safety deposit boxes would go to better use in these libraries.'"
The Special Collections and Archives Department is located on the ground floor of the Ralph Brown Draughon Library.
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