Series I. War Relics and Reminiscences

"War Relics and Reminiscences: An Appendix to Seth Eyland's Memoirs, by the Author" are five scrapbook volumes containing illustrations (black & white and color); post-war correspondence; and war-time orders, diary entries (transcriptions of), and correspondence, compiled by Cronin c 1888-1893 as an appendix to his The Evolution of a Life, Described in the Memoirs of Major Seth Eyland. The five scrapbook volumes contain numerous references to the published memoirs. An item-level calendar exists for War Relics and Reminiscences, see Manuscript Department staff.

The volumes detail the activities of the 1st New York Mounted Rifles during the Civil War, in Virginia along the York and James Rivers, and in North Carolina. This cavalry unit participated in the following campaigns: Deserted House (Jan. 1863), Longstreet's seige of Suffolk (May 1863), Bottom's Bridge (Feb. 1864), Drewry's Bluff or Fort Darlington (May 1864), and The Darbytown Road (Oct. 1864). Material also describes daily routines such as picket duty, orderly and courier duty, and scouting patrols on the Peninsula. Some skirmishes with Confederate bushwhackers and the looting activities of the Mounted Rifles are also described.

War Relics and Reminiscences contain four large collections of war-time correspondence from soldiers to their friends and family, which detail camp life, field duties, recreation, diet, medical care, desertions and prisoners, bounties and enlistments, politics, slavery, and skirmishes. These collections are the Samuel and Francis Budd Letters, the Edwin Parker Letters, the Thomas Turner Letters, and the John Wagner Letters. See calendar for locations and indexes for these collections.

Material in the five volumes is arranged alphabetically by commissioned officers, then alphabetically by non-commissioned officers and soldiers.