Source:Buchanan and McClellan Family Papers

Southern Historical Collection Wilson Library Manuscripts Department University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Abstract: (from University of North Carolina Library)

"Buchanan family of Warren and Lincoln counties, Tenn., and McClellan family of Limestone County, Ala. Prominent family members include Andrew Buchanan (fl. 1820-1865), planter and merchant; his son Felix Grundy Buchanan (d. ca. 1910), Confederate soldier; Thomas Joyce McClellan (fl. 1836-1880), planter, Whig politician, and member of the Alabama Secession Convention of 1861; his son William C. McClellan (d. 1869), Confederate soldier in the infantry; his son Thomas Nicholas McClellan (1853-1906), Alabama state senator, 1880-1884, attorney general, 1884-1889, associate justice of the Alabama supreme court, 1889-1898, and chief justice, 1898-1906; and his daughters Matilda McClellan (fl. 1859-1914) and Kate McClellan Buchanan (fl. 1859-1917).

Chiefly correspondence, dealing with land transactions in Warren and Lincoln counties, Tenn., and in Limestone County, Ala., family news, and farm activities. Thomas J. McClellan's interest in Whig politics in Alabama is documented, as is Thomas Nicholas McClellan's political career in Alabama. Several Buchanan and McClellan family members fought during the Civil War, including William C. McClellan,who wrote home about the first battle of Bull Run in 1861 and the battle of Fredericksburg in 1862. Matilda McClellan is the chief correspondent in the years after the Civil War. Her letters chiefly relate to family matters. There are also financial and legalmaterials relating to McClellan family members, particularly land transactions and legal cases handled by McClellan & McClellan of Athens, Ga., 1880s-1920s."