Conservation Article


Rare cartes de visite from the Henry Washington Benham Papers.

The Special Collections Division is pleased to announce that a proposal written by Shirley Rodnitzky and Gerald Saxon last fall recently won first prize in the ICI Conservation Division's Prize for a Plan 1995 national competition. Special Collections will receive $3,000 worth of conservation services from ICI Conservation Division to preserve the maps and a journal of Henry Washington Benham, an engineer and officer with the U. S. Army.

The purpose of the award is to help smaller institutions or institutions without the necessary funds for preservation. The Conservation Division of ICI, located in Brown Summit, North Carolina, was founded in 1987 to offer high quality, economical, and timely preservation and conservation services for libraries, archives, museums, historical societies, and other collection-holding institutions as well as for individuals.

The fall 1995 Compass Rose featured an article about General Benham. It described the importance of that summer's acquisition of the Benham Papers and outlined his career in the U. S. Army and his service in the Mexican War of 1846-1848 and the U. S. Civil War. Benham's papers reflect primarily his military career and include letters, military orders, military service records, maps, and documents, which describe the various campaigns in which he participated. They also include published articles he wrote concerning his service in Mexico, the West Virginia campaign of 1861, and technical manuals about the construction of pontoon bridges and devices for service in the field. Letters and documents are from many historical figures, such as John C. Fremont, George McClellan, and William L. Marcy. A contemporary manuscript facsimile of a letter written and signed by Abraham Lincoln in 1864 regarding Benham's assignment of duty is included with his military service records. Photographs of Benham show him at various ages in military and in civilian dress. His journal contains copies of orders, letters, and dispatches sent and received during the battle for Western Virginia. Thirty-five manuscripts and printed maps drawn or used by Benham show battlefields, towns, and the topography of the areas in which the various armies collided. Some of the maps contain extensive annotations concerning troop movements, enemy positions, and battle sites.

The condition of General Benham's maps and journal were of concern when the papers arrived in Special Collections. All of the maps were folded as they had remained for many years. Tears and multiple irregular creases prevented the safe access of these maps without causing serious damage. Preservation of the maps require that they be carefully unfolded, flattened, repaired, de-acidified, and encapsulated before use by researchers. The leather and marbled paper-covered journal contains two fold-out manuscript maps and more than one hundred pages of handwritten communications and battle reports recorded from June to December 1861. It is fragile and the binding partially broken. It was fortunate timing that the receipt of the collection was followed by ICI Conservation Division's announcement of a "Prize for a Plan 1995." In proposing the Benham maps and journal for the conservation plan, we felt we had a winner. The papers were not only of interest to Special Collections because of the maps and Mexican War materials, but General Benham was a national figure whose activities spanned the expansion of the American frontier and made engineering and military history during much of the nineteenth century.

The remaining portion of the Benham Papers, approximately two hundred items, was acquired by the university in the late fall of 1995. Dr. and Mrs. Marvin Applewhite and the UT System Board of Regents provided the funds necessary to purchase the second portion of the papers. This addition contains more than sixty-five rare cartes de visite and other photographs of family members, U.S. Army officers, scenes of waterways, ships, buildings, and machinery from about 1862-1907. Additional military documents, a bone ruler used by Benham and his son while at West Point, family correspondence, and papers of the Dielman family, possibly descendants, are included in the collection. There are letters from Benham to his wife, Elizabeth McNeil, as well as letters from his son, Henry Hill Benham, to his wife and mother from military stations in Cuba, 1900-1905. Military records, estate papers, and a printed biographical sketch of General John McNeil, Benham's father-in-law, are included in the collection. General McNeil had a distinguished military career in the early nineteenth century and fought in the U.S. Army at the battles of Chippewa and Niagara. After retirement, McNeil was surveyor of the port of Boston.

The Benham Papers will be reunited, processed, and available for research later in 1996 or early 1997. A great deal of U.S. history is packed into approximately two linear feet of papers, photographs, and artifacts. The Benham Papers' research value will reward students of military history, cartography, engineering, the Mexican-American War, the U.S. Civil War, and family history of the nineteenth century.

Special Collections
The University of Texas at Arlington Libraries
Phone: (817) 272-3393 * Fax: (817) 272-3360 * E-mail: Reference Desk

Special Collections Wins ICI Conservation Division Prize by Shirley Rodnitzky

Special Collections Wins ICI Conservation Division Prize
by Shirley Rodnitzky