Barbee Papers

[Gene C]

Wild Bill mentioned the Barbee Papers in another thread. I've heard about them, but know almost nothing about them, and I live nowhere near Georgetown U, where the papers are stored. What's interesting about them, and what should I know?

[BettyO]

I went through the Barbee papers a couple of years ago -

Lots of good information. I wish they would hurry and digitize the files because a lot of them are disintegrating. Mr. Hall, Mike Kauffman, John C. Brennan and others have gone over these wonderful files -

According to Wiki - "Barbee was an was an American journalist, a public relations writer for the Roosevelt administration and a researcher in American history, best known for writing on Southern history."

Barbee was himself a preacher and was friends with early Lincoln Assassination researchers Colonel Julian Raymond, the grand daughter of Dr.Gillette and many other folk -

According to the Rose O'Neal Greenhow website:

"The bulk of the Barbee Papers concerns his research, accomplished primarily between the years 1928-1958. The Papers are organized according to provenance into seven series, out- lining his historical interests. The series are: I: Abraham Lincoln; II: Death of Lincoln; III: Lincoln and Booth; IV: John Wilkes Booth; V: Conspirators; VI: Rose O'Neil Greenhow; and VII: American History. Because of the inter-relatedness of topics, the same subject files may be found in a number of series. An alphabetical index to subjects is appended to the finding aid and should be consulted. The Papers are largely subject-oriented. File headings as they appear in the folder descriptions are either in large case to indicate subject files or in small case to indicate correspondence files. The Papers contain correspondence, manuscripts, transcribed material, photocopies of documents, newspaper clippings, printed material, and photographs.

Transcribed material, photocopies of documents, and news- paper clippings represent an enormous amount of research through published and unpublished sources. Barbee was able to gain access to a great deal of material still in private hands, the continued existence of which is uncertain. It is interesting to not that Barbee was one of the scholars to read through the Lincoln Papers when they were opened to the public. Through his studies, he not only concerned himself with major historical figures, but identified many less central characters and spent a great deal of time in reconstructing their societal context.

Correspondence contains fascinating discussions of history, shared with a wide variety of individuals, in addition to including specific research inquiries in search of source material. Because of the years in which Barbee conducted his research, he was fortunate in being able to correspond with close relatives of historical figures from the Civil War era, such as Mrs. Lee D. Marie, grand-daughter of Rose O'Neil Greenhow. Barbee's large correspondence with historians includes letters from Paul M. Angle, Charles Beard, Samuel Ashe, Matthew Page Andrews, Frank Maloy Anderson, Ray P. Basler, Otto Eisenschiml, Lyon G. Tyler, Philip Van Doren Stern, Henry Steele Commager, Emmanuel Hetz, Archibald Henderson, and Albert J. Beveridge, among others. Other correspondents include Bennet Cerf, General Merritte W. Ireland, Stephen Early, Nicholas Murray Butler, Claude G. Bowers, Cordell Hull, Adlai Stevenson, Patrick Hurley, William Jennings Bryan and Lyndon B. Johnson.

Other material of note includes original correspondence concerning the estate of Rose O'N. Greenhow. Included are letters between A.M. Waddell of Wilmington, North Carolina and Richard Savage, dated 1866-1869. The question of the Greenhow estate is particularly interesting since she was found after her death with large amounts of gold, presumably for the Confederacy. Also included in the Greenhow series are three photographs of - Greenhow, including a carte-de-visite taken in London shortly before her death, a memorial card after her death, and a daguerreotype, date unknown.

Size: 25.0 linear feet; 17 boxes"


http://www.onealwebsite.com/RebelRose/BarbeePapers.htm

The Catalogue of the papers is here:

http://www.library.georgetown.edu/dept/s...45%7d1.htm

[Laurie Verge]

Even though we don't agree with all of Barbee's assumptions (such as Booth and Herold never came near Surrattsville on the night of the assassination), his research is a treasure. I think I have posted before that Mr. Hall was so impressed with the material and the style of writing that he approached Barbee's daughter many years ago about trying to get the ms published. She wasn't interested.

I have inquired about Georgetown undertaking the publicaton, but was told that they are not in the business. The last I heard, there were no funds for the digitizing either. I hope that's changed. The librarians that I have talked to at the Lauinger Library are very interested and very supportive; it's just that things are beyond their control at present.

If you decide to visit and peruse the files, plan for more than one day.

[BettyO]

Definitely!

I went back a couple of times - It is wonderful to go through, and you're right, Laurie. At the last report - there was no funding to digitize; although the staff is wonderfully helpful. It's a virtual treasure trove of information. I'd love to see the manuscript published. Barbee was also very interested in Powell and I have correspondence from the files in which he stated that he wanted to publish a "sympathetic" (his own words) biography of Powell as one had never been done.... I also discovered that Colonel Julian Raymond, also a Powell sympathizer, was working on a "novel about Powell" and Barbee corresponded with him, asking how the novel was coming along. Never found anything regarding the novel. Raymond's manuscript about the history of McNair is at the War College Library. Unfortunately, Raymond died right before I got "into" the assassination. I believe John C. Brennan was friends with him, as "Jaybo" as we affectionately referred to Mr.Brennan, sent me a cassette tape recording of a talk Colonel Raymond made regarding the Arsenal prison. I still have that cassette recording and am in the process of turning a lot of Mr. Brennan's talks on cassette into MP3 -

[Laurie Verge]

From what I have been told, Col. Raymond, Margaret Bearden, and Otto Eisenschiml were the triumvirate of Lincoln assassination studies pre-1960. I have also been told that the Colonel could only write a novel because his facts were so wrong. I knew Mrs. Bearden personally, and while being a very nice lady and a devout supporter of Mary Surratt, her materials were more of a collection of things than research-oriented. I'll leave you to guess what I think of most of Mr. Eisenschiml's work.

[Gene C]

I'll leave you to guess what I think of most of Mr. Eisenschiml's work.

I assume you hold him with the same special esteem that you have for Ray Neff?

[BettyO]

Ohhhhhhhh!!


I didn't know that about Colonel Raymond! John Brennan seemed to hold him in such high esteem! His talk was fairly good - albeit there WERE errors -

Didn't know that they were Eisenscheml/Neff fans! Learn something new every day!! I don't hold the Eisenscheml/Neff groupies in any high honor either....

Also didn't know that about Margaret Bearden....haven't gone through her papers yet. There ARE a lot of good things in the Barbee papers, however - particularly newspaper reports, correspondence with Amy Gillette Bassett (Granddaughter of Dr Gillette) with a lot of Dr Gillette's personal correspondence included.....

[Gene C]

It must be quite a challenge to determine how valid/reliable a source is when you uncover something new.

[Laurie Verge]

Mr. Hall used to tell me to find additional sources - preferably separate from each other - that say basically the same thing in order to determine validity.

[BettyO]

Agreed!

What I was primarily looking at were newspaper reports as well as correspondence -

[Jim Garrett]

Dave Taylor went through them and found a great newspaper article about the boat Booth and Herold crossed the Potomac in, being brought back up to Washington. Dave, that would be a good post here or on Boothiebarn.com

[L Verge]

Agreed, because I believe that article refuted the legend of the boat being torn apart in Virginia and passed around as souvenir pieces. I was surprised because I thought the instinct would be for some of Mrs. Quesenberry's friends to retrieve the boat and destroy it rather than let the federals find it.

[Dave Taylor]

Dave Taylor went through them and found a great newspaper article about the boat Booth and Herold crossed the Potomac in, being brought back up to Washington. Dave, that would be a good post here or on Boothiebarn.com

Here you go, Jim. I posted about Booth's boat back in October.

[Jim Garrett]

Dave Taylor went through them and found a great newspaper article about the boat Booth and Herold crossed the Potomac in, being brought back up to Washington. Dave, that would be a good post here or on Boothiebarn.com

Here you go, Jim. I posted about Booth's boat back in October.

Thank you Dave, I now remember the posting. As Dave is well aware of, Herb Collins, retired curator emeritus of the Smithsonian spent a great amount of time looking for the boat. It was listed in the Smithsonian annual report back around 1900. Dave and I are seeking permission to examine each of the Smithsonian's 25,000,000 artifacts to find the boat.

[Bill Richter]

I found out after perusing the on-line materials about the Barbee Collection (I didn't have Betty O's nice links above), making a list of what I wanted to see, and writing the archives Department when I would be there and sending them my list, that everything was set up perfectly when I arrived by plane from Arizona, and my wife (my research assistant) went through what I needed to write Last Confederate Heroes in a week--no wasted time. Georgetown U was one of the best organized and best run archives I have ever been in. They expedited everything and even helped me work around another gentleman who was working in the same boxes I needed. Barbee has a few wild ideas (who doesn't), but if you are interested in the assassination, read the massive manuscript, "Lincoln and Booth." It is a treasure as others have found before me.