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 Margaret Ann Meta Morris Grimball Diary #975-z, Southern Historical Collection, The Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Alternate Form of Material

Microfilm copy available.

Alternate Form of Material

Full text of diary available from Documenting the American South website. See below for direct link.

Acquisitions Information

Received from Meta M. Grimball of Charleston, S.C., in May 1945.

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.

• Agriculture--South Carolina.
• Charleston (S.C.)--History--Civil War, 1861-1865.
• Colleton District (S.C.)--History--19th century.
• Confederate States of America. Army--Military life.
• Confederate States of America. Navy--Sea life.
• Diaries.
• Episcopal Church--South Carolina--History--19th century.
• Grimball, John Berkley, 1800-1892.
• Grimball, Margaret Ann Meta Morris, 1810-1881.
• Grove Plantation (Colleton County, S.C.)
• Lowndes family.
• Manigault family.
• Morris family.
• Morrisania (N.Y.)--History--19th century.
• Plantation life--South Carolina.
• Plantation owners' spouses--South Carolina.
• Plantation owners--South Carolina.
• Refugees--Confederate States of America.
• Rice--South Carolina.
• Saint Johns College (Spartanburg, S.C.)--History.
• Saint Pauls Parish (S.C.)--History--19th century.
• Slavery--South Carolina.
• South Carolina--History--Civil War, 1861-1865.
• Spartanburg (S.C.)--History--19th century.
• Teachers--South Carolina--History--19th century.
• United States--History--Civil War, 1861-1865--Civilian relief--South Carolina.
• United States--History--Civil War, 1861-1865--Personal narratives, Confederate.
• Women--South Carolina--Diaries.
• Women--South Carolina--Social life and customs--19th century.

• Grimball Family Papers (#980)
• John Berkley Grimball Diary (#970)
• Manigault, Morris, and Grimball Family Papers (#976)

Margaret Ann Meta Morris Grimball, 1810-1881, was a descendant of Lewis Morris, general in the Continental Army, member of the Continental Congress, and signer of the Declaration of Independence. Meta's father, also called Lewis Morris, married Elizabeth Manigault of South Carolina in 1807. Elizabeth was killed in a storm on Sullivan's Island, S.C., on 22 September 1822. In 1834, Lewis Morris married Aramintha Lowndes, who died in 1843. Through Meta's family, the Grimballs were, therefore, connected to the prominent Manigault and Lowndes families of South Carolina and to the Morris family of New York.

In 1830, Meta married John Berkley Grimball, 1800-1892, of Charleston, S.C. Grimball was the son of John and Eliza Berkley Grimball and a descendant of Paul Grimball (d. 1696). Paul Grimball came to South Carolina from England in 1682 and was secretary and receiver general of the province. The Grimballs were rice planters in Saint Paul's Parish in the Colleton District of South Carolina, but also spent much of the year in Charleston. They had nine children: Elizabeth (1831-1914), who married William Munro (d. 1900) and lived in Unionville, S.C.; Berkley (1833-1899), who studied law; Lewis (1835-1901), a physician who married Clementina Legge; William (d. 1864); John (d. 1922), who attended the United States Naval Academy and married Katie Moore; Arthur (d. 1894); Gabriella (d. 1924); Charlotte; and Harry, who married Helen E. Trenholm, daughter of Edward L. Trenholm, in 1876.

The collection is the manuscript diary, 1860-1866, of Margaret Ann Meta Morris Grimball, with the greater part of the entries concentrated in 1861 and 1862. Mrs. Grimball wrote from the Grove Plantation (Colleton District, S.C.), primary Grimball residence until after the Civil War; from Charleston, S.C., where the family spent the summer months; and from Spartanburg, S.C., where they took refuge in May 1862 from anticipated Union attacks on the South Carolina coast. Topics include plantation life; slave management; the progress of the Civil War and its effects on the lives of those close to Mrs. Grimball, including the activities of her sons in the Confederate army and Confederate navy, and civilian relief efforts; sickness among the civilian and military population; the family's removal to the relative safety of Spartanburg, where they rented quarters at Saint John's College; her husband's conversion from Presbyterianism to Episcopalianism; her daughters' teaching careers; and other family and community matters.