Personal and business correspondence of Boyd and his son, James E. Boyd, attorney and political leader. Includes Civil War letters commenting on living conditions, military activities, and relating to the region around Richmond and Petersburg, Va. Also, letters concerning North Carolina politics in the early 1880s when James Boyd was U.S. Attorney for the Western District of North Carolina, and relating to his stockholdings in the Marine and River Phosphate Company of Charleston, S.C., and the Merchants and Manufacturers Association of Greensboro, N.C. Includes letters of Samuel R. Browning, a Louisiana slave trader, commenting on the health of various slaves and on the condition of the slave market, the effect of the cholera epidemics on the market, and accounts of various transactions. It is unclear, but it is possible that Browning was working as a slave trading agent for Archibald Boyd.
