Restrictions to Access

No restrictions. Open for research.

Restrictions to Use

No usage restrictions.

Copyright Notice

Copyright is retained by the authors of items in these papers, or their descendants, as stipulated by United States copyright law.

Preferred Citation

[Identification of item], in the Martin Van Buren Moore Papers, #520, Southern Historical Collection, The Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Acquisitions Information

Received from Mrs. Henry H. Smith of Richmond, Va., prior to 1941 and October 1954.

Received from Marie Bailey Struss of Fernandina, Fla., April 1964.

Received from Otis D. Smith of Springfield, Va., March 1972.

Additional Descriptive Resources

A copy of the original finding aid for this collection is filed in folder 1aa.

Sensitive Materials Statement

Manuscript collections and archival records may contain materials with sensitive or confidential information that is protected under federal or state right to privacy laws and regulations, the North Carolina Public Records Act (N.C.G.S. § 132 1 et seq.), and Article 7 of the North Carolina State Personnel Act (Privacy of State Employee Personnel Records, N.C.G.S. § 126-22 et seq.). Researchers are advised that the disclosure of certain information pertaining to identifiable living individuals represented in this collection without the consent of those individuals may have legal ramifications (e.g., a cause of action under common law for invasion of privacy may arise if facts concerning an individual's private life are published that would be deemed highly offensive to a reasonable person) for which the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill assumes no responsibility.

Processed by: SHC Staff

Encoded by: Noah Huffman, December 2007

Updated by: Kate Stratton and Jodi Berkowitz, June 2009

Updated in June 2020 to remove racist slurs.

This collection was rehoused and a summary created with support from the National Endowment for the Humanities.

This finding aid was created with support from NC ECHO.

The following terms from Library of Congress Subject Headings suggest topics, persons, geography, etc. interspersed through the entire collection; the terms do not usually represent discrete and easily identifiable portions of the collection--such as folders or items.

Clicking on a subject heading below will take you into the University Library's online catalog.

• Agricultural journalists--Southern States--History--19th century.
• Authors, American--Southern States--19th century.
• Confederate States of America. Army--Records and correspondence.
• Confederate States of America. Army. North Carolina Cavalry Regiment, 6th.
• Moore, Idora McClellan, 1843-1929.
• Moore, Martin Van Buren, 1837-1900.
• United States--History--Civil War, 1861-1865--Personal narratives, Confederate.
• Women authors, American--Southern States--19th century.

Martin Van Buren Moore (1837-1900) was a journalist, author, and experimental farmer of Lenoir, N.C., and Auburn, Ala. He was born in Shown's Cross Roads, Tenn., and prior to the Civil War worked as a salesman for Kent, Paine and Company in Richmond, Va. With the outbreak of war he helped raise an infantry company in Watauga County, N.C., and then enlisted in Company D of the 1st North Carolina Cavalry Regiment. He was later commissioned and served with the 7th North Carolina Cavalry which became the 6th North Carolina Cavalry Regiment. He saw action in Virginia, Tennessee, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Kentucky, and Georgia, and later with the Department of Eastern North Carolina in North Carolina and South Carolina.

In 1864 he was married to Sallie Elizabeth Lenoir, and they lived in Lenoir, N.C., and had eleven children. After the death of his wife in 1888, Moore moved with his family to Auburn, Ala., where he wrote and farmed. He was a staff writer for the Atlanta Constitution and contributed to Louisville Home and Farm and Southern Farmer. In 1892 he married Idora McClellan Plowman (1843-1929), an Alabama local color writer who wrote under the pseudonym, "Betsy Hamilton."

The collection includes writings and other papers of Martin Van Buren Moore, chiefly manuscripts of Moore's articles and books on colonial history, agriculture, the history of language, and other subjects. There are Confederate recollections, poems, lectures, and addresses. Also included are Civil War muster rolls and accounts kept by Moore as an officer of the 6th North Carolina Cavalry Regiment; correspondence with editors of agricultural magazines, 1880s and 1890s; and miscellaneous genealogical materials including a biographical sketch of Moore's wife, Idora McClellan Moore, autobiographical notes of Lauriston Greene Moore, and family photographs.

• Photograph (PF-520/1)