AUBURN UNIVERSITY – The Special Collections and Archives Department of Auburn University Libraries has added another significant historical document to its collection of materials documenting the American Civil War. Through a donation by the family of Nancy Eckert Galbreath, the Thomas Thompson Eckert diary has become a permanent part of Special Collections and Archives’ documents available to scholars studying this chapter of American history.
The Eckert diary, with entries written between Jan. 2 and Dec. 1865, offers a glimpse into a time when the United States was preparing for the end of the Civil War and the period immediately after. Eckert, at the time the general superintendent of military telegraph at the War Department with the rank of major, was a confidant of President Lincoln and Secretary of War Stanton. He participated in the failed Hampton Roads peace conference in February 1865 and was at Lincoln’s bedside when the president died on April 15, 1865.