Scope and Content Note
The papers of Cyrus Ballou Comstock (1831-1910) span the years 1847-1908, with the bulk of the material concentrated in the period 1862-1890. The collection principally contains military letters and telegrams, memoranda, special orders, general orders, and reports relating to the operations during the Civil War around Vicksburg, Mississippi, with lists of the number and kinds of guns in position before the city at certain dates and a full report of the siege.
The papers also include reports of other operations covering almost the entire war period; a diary, notebook, and a diary-field notebook containing entries recording Comstock's activities as an engineer attached to the Army of the Potomac; drawings of, and comments on, the fords on the Rapidan and Rappahannock rivers; sketches of the defenses at Harpers Ferry and the Aquia Creek depot; a memoir of the capture of Fort Fisher; the draft of Ulysses S. Grant's letter of resignation as secretary of war under Andrew Johnson; a letter from Jesse Root Grant relating to his ancestry; and a memoir of William Petit Trowbridge prepared by Comstock. Later papers deal with work on the improvements of the Mississippi River when Comstock was president of the Mississippi River Commission. Miscellaneous items include a printed copy of the annual message of James K. Polk to Congress and related documents, 1847, concerning the war with Mexico.
Correspondents include Henry Martyn Adams, B. S. Alexander, Daniel Butterfield, James Buchanan Eads, Ulysses S. Grant, H. W. Halleck, A. A. Humphreys, George Gordon Meade, David D. Porter, John McAllister Schofield, Philip Henry Sheridan, William T. Sherman, Daniel Edgar Sickles, E. D. Townsend, Seth Williams, and Horatio Gouverneur Wright.