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 Josiah Turner Papers #730, Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Alternate Form of Material

Microfilm copy (filmed 2005-2006) available.

• Reel 1: Entire collection

Acquisitions Information

Received from Mrs. Joseph Freeland of Efland, N.C., before 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.

• Confederate States of America--Politics and government.
• Confederate States of America. Army--Officers--Correspondence.
• Devereaux family.
• Families--North Carolina--Social life and customs.
• Holden, W. W. (William Woods), 1818-1892.
• Ku-Klux Klan (1866-1869)--North Carolina.
• Lawyers--North Carolina--History--19th century.
• North Carolina--History--Civil War, 1861-1865.
• North Carolina--Politics and government--1865-1950.
• Politicians--North Carolina--History--19th century.
• Reconstruction (U.S. history, 1865-1877)--North Carolina.
• Turner family.
• Turner, Josiah, 1821-1901.
• Turner, Sophia Devereux.

Josiah Turner (1821-1901) was a lawyer of Hillsborough, Orange County, N.C.; antebellum Whig politician; anti-secession Confederate officer; anti-Davis member of the Confederate Congress; and, during Reconstruction, a leading Conservative spokesman as editor of the Raleigh Sentinel. Turner married Sophie Devereux, daughter of Thomas Pollack Devereux, in 1856, and with her had four sons and a daughter.

The collection is mostly family correspondence, 1859-1894, of Josiah Turner and his wife, Sophia Devereux Turner during and after the Civil War, while he was a Confederate officer in eastern North Carolina, up to 1863; in the Confederate Congress, 1863-1865; and in Washington, D.C., seeking to be seated as a United States Representative, 1866. Other family correspondence is of Sophia Devereux Turner, her Devereux relatives, and the Turner children, chiefly 1859-1894. There is a smaller amount of political correspondence, including some relating to Turner's opposition to Republican Governor W. W. Holden and his expulsion from the North Carolina state legislature in 1880, as well as information concerning Confederate politics, Reconstruction in North Carolina, and the Ku-Klux Klan. Also included are speeches, clippings, bills and receipts, a small amount of printed material, a law journal, and a personal account book.