Charles Minor’s Cashbook and The Diary of E.P. Harmon, a Maine Soldier in the Overland Campaign, Spring 1864

Abstract

On May 25, 1864, the soldiers of Company E, Fifth Maine Volunteers, destroyed the railroad tracks and property of the Virginia Central Railroad near the small depot in Hewlett’s Station, Virginia, just north of Richmond. Union soldiers procured a travel trunk that belonged to Confederate Captain Charles L.C. Minor. It contained items such as clothes, personal belongings, and a cashbook of financial records. The cashbook (a pocket-sized ledger book measuring 5.5 x 7.5 inches) included details of Minor’s financial transactions from 1860 to 1863.