The microfilm of the papers of David Homer Bates (1843-1926) spans the years 1837-1926 and consists of reproductions of collected items as well as the personal papers of Bates that comprise part of the Alfred Whital Stern Collection of Lincolniana in the Rare Book and Special Collections Division of the Library. Included are a diary, correspondence, facsimiles, photographs, newspaper clippings, printed matter, and drafts and annotated proof sheets of some of Bates's writings. The papers are organized into the following series: Civil War File , Correspondence , Fascimiles , Miscellany , and Scrapbooks .

Notable among the collected items are eleven Abraham Lincoln manuscripts and single letters of such Civil War commanders as Robert E. Lee, James Lawson Kemper, Edmund Kirby-Smith, Richard Stoddert Ewell, and Jefferson Columbus Davis.

Among the personal papers is a diary and daily journal kept by Bates for the period November 1863 to June 1865, while he served as manager of the War Department telegraph office in Washington, D.C. This volume is of importance as a record of military intelligence activities in the Civil War and is of further interest because of the manner in which the day-to-day narrative reveals the significance of telegraphic communication in the area of military science. Also included in the personal papers are letters of Andrew Carnegie, Thomas Thompson Eckert, and Robert Todd Lincoln. There are also some retained copies of letters written by Bates.