William R. McMahan Collection

Collection

Identifier: MSS.0278

Staff Only

Scope and Contents

This .21 linear feet collection contains one handwritten diary from the Civil War, a typescript of the diary, and a book from 1895.

Dates

1861-1865; 1895

Language of Materials

English

Conditions Governing Access

This collection may be viewed only in the reading room of Special Collections in the Jean and Alexander Heard Library. Collections should be requested 2-3 days prior to visiting in order to facilitate easier access. For questions or to request a collection, contact specialcollections@vanderbilt.edu.

Biography/History

William R. McMahan was born in 1843 in Indiana. At the age if eighteen, he enlisted as a private for service in the Union Army with the Fifty-eighth Volunteer Infantry on September 10, 1861. His diary relates military life, and various Civil War campaigns: Chattanooga, Lookout Mountain, Chickamauga, and Atlanta. At war’s end he was discharged having obtained the rank of First Lieutenant. After returning from the army he studied medicine and in 1868 he graduated from Rush Medical College of Chicago. He was faculty member of Evansville Medical College from 1882-1884.

Listed in the back of the diary is a list of monies borrowed and/or loaned, a list of wounded soldiers. Included in the typescript are notes from John J. Hight’s diary [original not available],

The collection was donated by his grandson, A. B. Nickey.