Scope and Content Note
The papers of James Harrison Wilson (1837-1925) span the years 1861-1923, with the bulk from the period 1890-1915. Included in the collection are correspondence, letterpress copy books, letterbooks, business papers, speeches, articles, books, newspaper clippings, a scrapbook, and poems by the sculptor James Edward Kelly. The collection is organized in five series: General Correspondence ; Letterpress Copy Books ; Letterbooks ; Book, Article, and Speech File ; and Subject File .
The General Correspondence series forms the bulk of the collection, documenting a portion of Wilson's life and dealing with subjects such as the Civil War, railroad affairs, politics, foreign policy, the Spanish-American War, Cuban affairs, and the China Relief Expedition of 1900. A large amount of the correspondence deals with Wilson's writings and business ventures.
Much of the correspondence is with political figures and military officers. Correspondents include Charles Francis Adams, Adam Badeau, Simeon E. Baldwin, Tasker Howard Bliss, Andrew Carnegie, Henry Clark Corbin, E. H. Crowder, Shelby M. Cullom, Charles A. Dana, Grenville Mellen Dodge, Stuyvesant Fish, Hamlin Garland, Frederick John Kingsbury, Robert Todd Lincoln, Henry Cabot Lodge, William McKinley, John Bassett Moore, George Haven Putnam, Whitelaw Reid, Theodore Roosevelt, Elihu Root, Francis Lynde Stetson, Moorfield Storey, Oswald Garrison Villard, Paul M. Warburg, Horace White, and John Russell Young. An especially large amount of personal and business correspondence is with Edward Francis Winslow, Wilson's comrade-in-arms and business associate on railway construction and operations of the St. Louis and Southeastern Railway Company.
In the Book, Article, and Speech File are drafts and typescripts of a number of Wilson's writings, including his Life and Services of William Farrar Smith (1904), The Life of Charles A. Dana (1907), and The Life of John A. Rawlins (1916). The file also includes extracts of Rawlins's letters. Under the Old Flag (1912),Wilson's memoirs, appears in many incomplete drafts, one set with corrections and suggestions by Bluford Wilson, the brother of the author. The papers also contain several unpublished manuscripts, including the incomplete “Heroes of the Great Rebellion.”