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 Forrest Family Papers #2206-z, Southern Historical Collection, The Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Acquisitions Information

Lent for filming by Rutherford Fleet of Richmond, Va., in January 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.

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.

• Account books.
• American Confederate voluntary exiles--Mexico.
• Americans--Europe--Diaries--History--19th century.
• Clermont Plantation (Alexandria, Va.)
• Confederate States of America--Foreign relations.
• Confederate States of America--Officials and employees.
• Confederate States of America. Navy--Officers--Correspondence.
• Confederate States of America. Navy--Officers--Diaries.
• Confederate States of America. Navy--Sea life.
• Europe--Description and travel.
• Forrest family.
• Forrest, Douglas French, 1837-1902.
• Forrest, French, 1796-1866.
• Norfolk (Va.)--History--19th century.
• Palestine--Description and travel.
• Texas--Description and travel.
• United States--History--Civil War, 1861-1865--Naval operations.
• United States--History--Civil War, 1861-1865--Personal narratives, Confederate.
• Virginia--History--Civil War, 1861-1865.
• Voyages and travels.

Douglas Forrest was born in Baltimore on 17 August 1837, was graduated from Yale in 1857, and attended law school, 1858-1860, at the University of Virginia. He practiced law at Alexandria, Va., 1860-1861, before joining the Army of Northern Virginia in 1861. During the war, he took three months sick furlough at Norfolk in 1862, and was paymaster of the Naval Station at Wilmington(?) in 1862 and at Richmond, 1862-1863. He spent the later years of the war abroad. After the war, he practiced law in Baltimore and became a minister of the Gospel in 1870. He moved to Wytheville, Va., around 1875 and assumed the rectorship of St. John's Parish.

Papers of French Forrest (1796-1866), of Maryland, U.S. naval officer during the Mexican War and later an officer in the Confederate Navy; and of his son, Douglas F. Forrest (1837-1902), Confederate naval officer, lawyer in Baltimore, and Episcopal minister. There are a few loose papers in the collection. The bulk of the material is composed of account books from Clermont, the home of French Forrest at Alexandria, Va., and his order and letter books at Richmond and at the Confederate navy yard at Norfolk, Va. Also included are Douglas F. Forrest's diaries while serving in the Confederate Navy and in the West Indies, England, and France, 1863-1865, as an agent for the Confederate governsent, and a short diary and memoir, June 1865, of his start as an emigrant, via Texas, to Mexico. There are also four volumes of a diary he kept on a trip to Europe and the Holy Land, 1871, shortly after leaving the Virginia Theological Seminary, where he received his training for the Episcopal ministry.