This collection contains diaries and scrapbooks belonging to George Anderson Mercer, 1851-1907, family correspondence, 1848-1913, and genealogies and biographical sketches with correspondence pertaining to them, 1949-1965.
Two of G.A. Mercer's diaries cover the Civil War period. The remainder concerns his personal life, notes on wildlife, philosophy, literature, and politics. Two scrapbooks and a volume of case notes are originals.
All of the correspondence is original. They are largely family letters, most of them from Gen. Hugh Weedon to his wife, 1848-1851, and to his daughter, Mary (wife of Gen. Henry H. Walker), 1848-1875. Earlier letters are written from Savannah, while later ones are from Baden-Baden, Germany, where he went for his health and where he later died. The letters contain family news and items of local interest. Two of them (March 20, 1849 and May 28, 1959) mention his friend, Col. Robert E. Lee. One letter, December 1, 1868, tells of his second marriage (to Mrs. Bessie Cuyler) and others mention the child of that marriage. The remaining letters are to and from other members of the family as well as various friends.