I finished up the Coleman papers around the 15th of this month, the pages are now up on my website and are in the electronic collection of the archive. Since my time here at the archive is coming to a close I'm taking time to invent a special project website, "Civil War 101." It's a basic website about the civil war, very lean in historical content but with enough links to make up for it. I'm building the pages from scratch and etching out the content slowly. I could have easily started another transcription project, or archival project, but I would rather create this new site. It has a lasting value to the archives and the researchers and I hope it can be added to in the future.

Very little else has occurred though I was mentioned in an article by the newspaper along with the head archivist here, in an article that detailed the collection, etc. Work is long and slow as I'm scrambling to find images for the site -if not making them. I wish I had my laptop back from the shop.

July 1, 2002

I have not been intentionally neglecting this journal, rather I've been busy getting my act together with the website and further research.

As it stands the website is currently functional now with indexes included on the main page to help navigate. I've been able to work on creating stylistic changes, but I'm amazed at how much my focus has turned once again to the WWW as far as content goes.

There are now two main indexes to the website, the Coleman research project - with a subsection on regimental history, and the Grape Shot Archival page with notes about genealogical research, etc. The work is slow but rewarding.

My archival program in Nebraska has currently bottomed-up on me, and I'm looking to stay in Texas for my archival certification at UT-Arlington and transfer credits back to UNL. The prospect is not what I had expected, but after speaking with my advisor I knew it would come to this. The budget cuts in Nebraska have seemed to cut everyone there pretty deep. I still have to send Dr. G. my 5 books I'm reading for this internship.

The Grape Shot Archival Page

June 13, 2002

I have been immersed in organizing Coleman's letters. I have so far been able to formally correlate between the letters and actual civil war battles. Automatically that correlation adds credibility and adds to the research use of the collection. Now that I have a historical framework to place the letters into I am much more able to understand their relevance and also the magnitude of what was spoken about. coleman was at the reformation of the 6th when it decided to go Confederate, and his letter describing the entire business is illuminating. I have also been able to render a date onto a letter written near August 1861, as it turns out, he wrote 5 miles from Manassas and was there several days into the fighitng. His description of the events will be very usefult o any researcher needing to look them up.

I am still going through Coleman's letters, thouhg I have been side-tracked after figuring out the design specifics of the website. I don't want to spend too much time working on design to put the items I'm working on online, but I do need to make the topic entertaining to the eye, enough that it is something beyond whtie page with black text. Unfortunately my current Geocities software is less than user friendly when it comes to hard-coding HTML directly into a docment (I'm hoping when I crack open the Dream Weaver software it will prove to be an aid in that department as most WYSIWYG editors are like that. I have also downloaded an evalutation version of Paintshop Pro 7. I am eventually going to purchase my own copy as it has some user-friendly features when altering and resizing images, which can be vital to creating a webpage.

Other than looking through the Coleman letters again, I have also been involved in two other minor projects. Among them I have (ssince yesterday) been working on the synopsis of William Coleman's life, the Regimental history, and the letter collection synopsis which will be used in my finding aid. All three sections will be linked from my pages as an introduction to myr esearch. My next task is to finish writing the summaries for each letter. In addition to the summaries I have also been working on forming connections between the people within Coleman's company and any other information I can extrude from them. So far I have bene able to find Robert Pagan, his son, and several other friends of William who were in company's 'A' and 'F'.

My second minor project has been to find any information on Henry arrasmith, my supposed Great-Great-Great Grandfather, who was a Captain in the civil war (Union side). I have not been able to find anything on Henry after several long evenings of looking. I am hoping a book by Gessie Day about the Arrasmith's family will be of some aid. I have alreayd exhausted my searches on many online databases and am since forced to turn to books on the amtter, and whatever knowledge my Grandmother may have about him. I am researching Henry on the side of my other projects. Julie has said there is no conflict of interest and I can use the library resources as needed. As a personal project this one is going to be a challenge... thus far I have not found any genealogical data about ANY of my family let alone my grandfather. I am hoping my new lead I arrived at last evening, about Sullivan Co., Missouri will prove to be somewhat fruitful.

I will write more later.

The Grape Shot Archival Page

June 11, 2002

I am a little late in beginning this journal as is to be expected given the move to Texas, etc. I have been working for the archive now for almost two weeks. Thus far I have been researching the life of William Coleman, a Civil War Private from South Carolina who serviced in the 6th volunteer infantry (Confederate side). The archive is fortunate enough to have fifty of his war date letters which start from the beginning of the war to the end. For my first week within the archive I spent my time transcribing the letters into MSWord format. It was a long process, and dull. I was grateful to get all the letters finished, and then began to write up the summaries of each individual letter. Unfortunately the further I got through the collection the more I realized I needed to pull together some information on Coleman's life within the army from an "official" source.

My eventual goal in dealing with the Coleman archive is to create a finding aid which, goes indepth into the life of Coleman, the movements of his brigade, and any other details regarding his family. To do this a biography, birth and death dates are needed. My search for such information led me to the internet in order to find even a starting place for information. I was surprised to find a sheer lack of detailed information (and an exclusion of) on the 6th South Carolina Volunteers. For two days I went online and searched arduously online and through databases for records, finding little or no information. Finally, on a chance I came across the letters of Thomas Boulware. Boulware served in the 6th, 'A' Division with Coleman. I have since put in a request to receive Boulware's Civil War date letters, that they may be used in contrast with the Coleman letters by researchers.

I also came across a fantastic find yesterday regarding Coleman himself. On a tip from Julie Holcombe, I called over to Hill College's, History Complex and contacted Peggy Fox. To my amazement they not only had the listing of all the men who served in South Carolina, but also had a regimental history. In a flash I drove to Hillsboro TX, from Corsicana and found Hill College. I was absolutely amazed at the resources the small museum/archives had and how friendly their staff was.
With the new material I have found, I can now start writing my finding aid. Overall that roadtrip to Hillsboro saved me a month of research time, and frustration. My finding aid is going to be available online for parousal by anyone, and should be an aid to anyone looking for information on William Coleman or his brothers. Because there is a lack of information online I will be adding a listing of the 6th Reg volunteers to my page somewhere, in hopes to aid researchers of the future. I am extremely pleased and excited over my recent finds. Now I have to create the webpages to present this information and they should not be too difficult once I get my geocities page working right.

The Grape Shot Archival Page