Heartsill's hand drawn map of Camp Butler, Union camp for Confederate prisoners, near Springfield Illinois, c. 1861-1865

The collection consists of an original manuscript diary by Elizabeth Craw, which contains entries from 1833-1841. The diary recounts in short, sporadic entries her 1833 journey from Cleveland, Ohio, to Saint Augustine, Texas to see her soldier fiancé, Samuel Evans. Craw writes of the methods and difficulties of their long trek on horseback, along the Mississippi and Red Rivers, and across Louisiana bayous. After Craw and her future in-laws arrived in Texas, the entries stop until March 20, 1836, when the diary indicates that Evans was killed at the Alamo. The journal shows that Craw opened a small school in her house in Saint Augustine in 1837. In much of her journal after this, Craw expresses her despair through poems and passages. In 1841, Craw writes in Cleveland that she had "come back to die in the home of my father/ and sit 'neath the blossoms that mock my decay/ And thus my fond memory the sad harvest gathers/ of friendships and loves that have long passed away."