USC Beaufort's South Campus library in Bluffton has received the Colonel B. F. Eshleman Folio, the second library contribution from the private collection of Jack and Mindy Castles.

The Castles, former residents of Darien, Connecticut with deep family roots in South Carolina and Louisiana, donated a family collection of letters, news clippings, and other Civil War documents to USC Beaufort. The donated documents include a signed letter from General Robert E. Lee, a Samuel Johnson Dictionary of the English language dating from 1755, and extensive materials on the Civil War, and World War I and II.

"We are pleased to make this Eshleman Folio gift to USC Beaufort's library since we know of the great interest in the Civil War in this region of South Carolina," said Jack Castles, a retired New York attorney.

The Castles' interest in the Civil War and especially the chronicles of the fabled Washington Artillery and respected military leader Colonel Benjamin Franklin Eshleman was fostered by a grandfather's marriage to a daughter of the famous Confederate soldier. Colonel Eshleman fought in all of the Army of Northern Virginia's epic battles, from the outbreak of the Civil War until the final surrender at Appomattox.

"You read the chronicles of the Washington Artillery meetings spanning post-Civil War to nearly 1905," said Castles, "and you witness in these letters and news accounts what truly sustained these soldiers in their hardscrabble and courageous military campaigns against the North."

Upon receiving this collecetion of correspondence, newspaper clippings, and other documents, USC Beaufort invited Elizabeth Sudduth, head of rare books processing and services, to catalog and photocopy all materials for future research and scholarship.

"It's impossible to place a monetary value on the Eshleman Folio," said Melanie Hanes-Ramos, assistant library director of the USC Beafort South Campus Library in Bluffton. "The value is in the research potential."

For more information about this new collection, contact Hanes-Ramos by phone at 843-208-8023 or e-mail HanesML@gwm.sc.edu.

1/07