Restrictions to Access

No restrictions. Open for research.

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 John Grammar Brodnax Papers, #88-z, Southern Historical Collection, The Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Alternate Form of Material

All or part of this collection is available on microfilm from University Publications of America as part of the Records of ante-bellum southern plantations from the Revolution through the Civil War, Series J.

Acquisitions Information

Prior to 1940

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: Kathryn Michaelis, October 2009

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.

• Adams family.
• Alabama--Economic conditions.
• Brodnax family.
• Brodnax, John Grammar, 1829-1907.
• Confederate States of America. Army--Medical care.
• Confederate States of America. Army--Surgeons.
• Glen family.
• Jones family.
• Ku Klux Klan (19th cent.)
• Petersburg (Va.)--Social life and customs.
• Physicians--North Carolina--History--19th century.
• Physicians--Virginia--History--19th century.
• Pittsylvania County (Va.)--Social life and customs.
• Rockingham County (N.C.)--Social life and customs.
• Roulhac family.
• Roulhac, Nannie.
• Ruffin family.
• Ruffin, Thomas, 1787-1870.
• Smallpox--Vaccination--History--19th century.
• St. Mary's School (Raleigh, N.C.)--Students--History--19th century.
• Withers, Thomas.

• See also John Wilkins Brodnax Papers (#89) in the Southern Historical Collection, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

John Grammar Brodnax (1829-1907), physician and Confederate surgeon, was born in Dinwiddie County, Va. He practiced medicine in Petersburg, Va., and Rockingham County, N.C., where he also farmed. During the Civil War, Brodnax supervised several Confederate hospitals.

The collection is chiefly family correspondence, 1827-1920, involving members of the Brodnax, Ruffin, Jones, Roulhac, Adams, Glenn, and related families of North Carolina and Virginia, and a few financial and legal items. Early items include several 1845 letters to Mary Brodnax, student at St. Mary's School in Raleigh, N.C., and one from North Carolina Chief Justice Thomas Ruffin in Raleigh to Robert Brodnax in Pittsylvania County, Va., about Mary's progress in school; and an 1849 letter to John Grammar Brodnax from relatives in Alabama about buying land there. Also included are letters, beginning in 1849, to John Grammar Brodnax from his uncle Thomas Withers, physician of Petersburg, Va., chiefly about family matters. Civil War era materials include letters and other items relating to Brodnax's army career, which he spent, for the most part, around Petersburg, Va. Included is a printed circular from the Confederate Surgeon General about administering smallpox vaccine. There are also several letters from Thomas Ruffin during this period that are chiefly about family affairs. Among the few items after 1865 is a 1908 letter from Nannie Roulhac about whether or not certain individuals had ever belonged to the Ku Klux Klan.