The Keepsake Album of Miss Clara B. Wherritt

The Civil War can be romanticized in the way we view the time and people who were a part of it.  For an Antebellum young lady a Keepsake album is where she could keep all of her most precious of mementos.  And inside the pages of Miss Clara B. Wherritt’s album are no different.   Keepsakes come in all shapes and sizes.  Some come in the form of small trinkets from loved ones or family members, others in items that hold a memory of a special time in one’s life.  This Keepsake comes in the form of a 7x9 leather bound album with golden accents, and floral filigrees adorning its cover.  An album filled with elaborately written letters from friends among her travels and poetry from loved ones close to home.  The entries enclosed span from 1857 to 1861.  Pasted in the pages of the album are also news clippings from October 22nd of 1861, a day after the battle of Camp Wildcat in London Kentucky. 

Although the specific newspaper is unknown, it is listed as special correspondence from the Cincinnati Commercial Tribune.  The clipping accounts the movement into the Northern Laurel County area of Brigadier General Zollicoffer, and his Confederate troops.   The article also discusses the swift decision to disburse Troops into the area from Camp Dick Robinson, in Lancaster Kentucky.  Colonel Garrard, commander of the Union troops with odds set against him held is post and the line until more forces could join him in the fight from the 14^th Ohio division.  They arrived just in time to reinforce with artillery and supplies.  The newspaper reporter speculates that Zollicoffer doubted that Garrard would be supported or gain reinforcements.  With that in mind he waged numerous attacks on Garrard and the Union soldiers to wear them down. According to the article the Union soldiers were twelve thousand versus six to seven thousand Confederate soldiers.   Zollicoffer, firing heavily with three waves of attack with only a minimal loss of 4 Union soldiers and only 20 wounded.  This was a stunning Victory for the Union, and a great offensive move against the Confederacy’s Kentucky Campaign.  

For this Keepsake album, The Battle of Camp Wildcat, is not the only battle that its pages contain.   After the Battle of Richmond in late August of 1862, the album was found by a Union soldier, Robert Thrall, inside the Madison County Court house.   Thrall with custody of the small album returned back to his hometown in Southern Ohio, where it remained in his possession until his death in 1873.  The keepsake album then found its way into the hands of Mr. Thrall’s brother-in-law, L.A. Austin of Granville, Ohio.  Several years passed as it remained in their possession with a family folklore now firmly attached, a mystery still remained.  Who was Miss Clara B. Wherritt?  Could this young lady still be in the Richmond, Kentucky area nearly twenty four years later?  With these questions in mind, Mr. Austin wrote to the post-master of Madison County inquiring if he knew of a woman by that name.  The post-master replied that he did indeed know a woman that went by that name but had changed her last name through marriage. Miss Clara Wherritt was now Mrs. Clara Olds, of Lancaster, Kentucky.  Mr. Austin and his family were delighted to find that the books true owner was still alive and wrote to her telling her of its journey and asked if she would like to have it back in her custody.  

Mrs. Clara Olds was overjoyed to find out what had happened to her book, and immediately wrote back to Mr. Austin and his wife with excitement to be reintroduced to an old friend.  She had always wondered what had become if it, she had let a friend who had worked in the courthouse at that time have it to autograph.  Mrs. Olds, told them of how she had married in November of 1862, just after the Battle of Richmond, and moved to Lancaster with her husband.  They had only one daughter who she thought would value the album very much.  Mrs. Olds, asked them to autograph the book themselves before they sent it back to where it truly belonged. 

This keepsake holds inside a victory for the Union, and a victory for the Confederacy.  One could say it holds all the romantic notion of the Civil War just like an antebellum keepsake album was imagined to become.           

Olds, Clara B.  Keepsake Album.  Special Collections and Archives: Eastern Kentucky University,  Richmond, Kentucky.  Item #30.1.