Collections : [University of Michigan Bentley Historical Library]

The Correspondence series contains primarily research and travel-related communications between Dr. Organski and a group of his colleagues, including collaborators Jacek Kugler and Bruce Bueno de Mesquita. This series represents mainly the period from 1989-1997 with a few items from his early and mid-career years. The focus of the Correspondence Series is communication supporting his research career, with a few personal interactions and discussions about his teaching. For continuity's sake, correspondence related to Department of Defense issues is kept in the Defense subseries of the Topical series.

The great bulk of the collection consists of correspondence of Parkhurst and other members of his family. Except for period of time when Parkhurst was away from home, the letters are largely incoming. Copies were not made of responses.

Correspondence measures one-and-a-third linear feet and comprises the bulk of the collection. This series begins with a letter of Frank E. Robson written in 1946 and containing biographical information about Longyear. Except for this, the correspondence covers the years 1846 to 1875 and consists primarily of letters from constituents, family members, and Republican political figures. Important correspondents include John Judson Bagley, Fernando C. Beaman, Thomas McIntyre Cooley, Sullivan M. Cutcheon, Divie Bethune Duffield, Thomas W. Ferry, William Alanson Howard, Ephraim Longyear, John McKinney, Irs Mayhew, John Stoughton Newberry, Schuyler Seager Olds, and Solomon Withey.

family correspondence, including materials related to the American Civil War

Nearly 300 letters written to his wife while he was serving in Company B, 19th Michigan Infantry (1862-1865). He is concerned with folks and affairs at home. He comments on guard and picket duty; the officers (especially General McClellan); the Chaplain; the health of the men, deaths and burials; the draft, deserters and Negroes coming into camp; on rumors of battles; and speculates about the end of the war. He tells about boxes and mail from home; explains why he is fighting; and writes often of the ever present food problem. There is an account of a fierce battle near Franklin with a cavalry unit of Bragg's army in which his brother is killed and the regiment captured and marched south to Libby Prison. He tells an interesting story about buckets of burning leather being carried through the camp to smoke out smallpox. Paroled, the men marched or rode in hog cars back to Fortress Monroe and Annapolis where he was hospitalized for a while. After being at home for a short time, he returns to the regiment, and the march south to Atlanta begins. He describes their camps and shanties; trading with rebel pickets; prisoners taken (including a woman in man's clothing); a Sunday in camp with "preaching in one place, firing of guns in another, a brass band playing in another place, and cooking meat and washing clothes most all around you." He visits the Chickamauga battlefield, describes the destruction and evacuation of Atlanta; the march to Savannah; the capture of a rice mill and the burning of towns and plantations along the way through South Carolina. Finally the war is over. He is sent to McDougall Hospital in New York Harbor, and discharged May 26, 1865.