Civil War diaries of William Penn Flenner, 1864-1865

This collection consists of photocopies of a typed transcription of William Penn Flenner's diaries, which recount his daily life in 1864 and 1865 as a private in Company G of the 76th Illinois Volunteer Infantry Regiment. Topics of interest include Flenner's participation in Sherman's March to the Sea during the fall of 1864, the Union's depredation of Southern towns and farms, the hardships of weather and illness, religious faith during wartime and Flenner's reunions with family during and after his service. The transcriptions also contain handwritten annotations by unknown persons concerning spellings of names relating to persons and places, as well as Flenner's presumed misinformation concerning some battles. Also included are photocopies of Flenner's discharge record and a newspaper article about his diaries. Pagination of the 1864 diary is problematic as page numbers 5 and 7 were not used; retyped and sometimes incomplete versions of page numbers 13, 14, 16, 18, 19, 25, 36 and 39 accompany the copy from the initial set; and unnumbered pages providing background on several figures and events described on surrounding pages are inserted between page numbers 96-97, 102-103, 116-117, 119-120 and 120-121. The 1865 diary ends mid-sentence in the entry for August 5, 1865 in which Flenner is home in Champaign City, Illinois, after "three years in the army lacking two days."
Archival master image scanned in reflective mode as 48-bit RGB color TIFF. Display image is 8-bit 150 dpi JPG, quality rating 8, generated from uncompressed archival TIFF using Photoshop CC.

Publisher

Wichita State University Libraries, Special Collections and University Archives, http://specialcollections.wichita.edu

Digital Collection

William Penn Flenner's U.S. Civil War Diaries

URI

https://hdl.handle.net/10057/41074

Use and Reproduction

Images are in the public domain or protected under U.S. copyright law (Title 17, U.S. Code), and may be used for research, instruction, and private study. Publication, commercial use, or reproduction, in print or digital format, of a copyrighted image or the accompanying data in accordance with Fair Use (sec. 107) requires users to provide prior written permission from the copyright holder. All images are to be cited as "Courtesy of Wichita State University Libraries, Special Collections and University Archives" and users are to let us know the intended use at specialcollections@wichita.edu.

Collections

William Penn Flenner's U.S. Civil War Diaries