Administrative Information

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Preferred Citation

John Warwick Daniel Papers, #158, 158-a, 3171, 5383, -a-, -b, -c, -d,-e, Special Collections, University of Virginia Library, Charlottesville, Va.

Acquisition Information

The accessions that comprise this collection were purchased on seven different occasions: October 15, 1938 from Miss Warwick Daniel; and July 1956, July 8, 1957, December 1, 1957, July 7, 1958, September 27, 1958, and April 4, 1959 from Mrs. Glenna D. Anthony.

Biographical/Historical Information

John Warwick Daniel was born September 5, 1842, in Lynchburg, Virginia, the son of William and Sarah Anne (Warwick) Daniel. He attended private schools, Lynchburg College, and Gessner Harrison's classical school. With the outbreak of the Civil War, Daniel entered the Confederate Army in May, 1861, as a second lieutenant in the Provisional Army of Virginia and drill master in the Twenty-seventh Virginia Infantry, Stonewall Brigade. After the state army was dissolved, Daniel was appointed second lieutenant and afterward first lieutenant of Company A, Eleventh Virginia Infantry. He later became adjutant of the same regiment. Daniel raised his own company of cavalry and was elected captain in 1862, but the Conscription Act of 1862 forced the dissolution of volunteer groups such as his own and he returned to his former regiment. Daniel was wounded in the first Battle of Manassas and at Boonsboro, Maryland; however, the wound he received at the Battle of the Wilderness, May 6, 1864, after having been appointed major and chief of staff for General Jubal A. Early, ended Daniel's military career and crippled him for life.

After the war, Daniel studied law at the University of Virginia during the 1865-1866 session. He was admitted to the bar in 1866 and commenced practice in Lynchburg with his father. Daniel published two major legal works, one on attachments (1869) and another on negotiable instruments (1876).

Daniel entered politics soon after commencing his legal practice and held numerous offices during his lifetime. He served as a member of the Virginia House of Delegates from 1869 to 1872; in the state Senate from 1875 to 1881; as presidential elector on the Democratic ticket of Tilden and Hendricks in 1876; as a member of the Democratic national conventions in 1880, 1888, 1892, 1896, and 1900; was an unsuccessful Democratic candidate for governor in 1881; elected as a Democrat to the Forty-ninth Congress (March 4, 1885-March 3, 1887); and was elected in 1885 to the United States Senate, serving from 1887 until his death in Lynchburg on June 29, 1910.

In Virginia, Daniel opposed the Readjusters led by William Mahone; and, in 1881, was the unsuccessful Funder opponent of Readjuster William E. Cameron for governor. Daniel was also the leader of the free silver bloc in Virginia, delivering the keynote address on the currency question at the Democratic National Convention in 1896. At the 1901-1902 Virginia Constitutional Convention he served as chairman of the committee on the elective franchise, which successfully sought to disfranchise blacks. Daniel was highly acclaimed for his oratorical abilities; his address at the unveiling of the Robert E. Lee statue at Lexington, Virginia, in 1883, was especially admired. In the Senate Daniel gained a reputation as a spokesman for the anti-imperialist, anti-tariff, and free silver causes, as well as an advocate of sectional reconciliation and Southern equality.

Daniel married Julia Elizabeth Murrell of Lynchburg, Virginia, in 1869 and had five children: Caroline (Carrie) Daniel, Julia Daniel, John Warwick Daniel, Jr., Edward Murrell Daniel and William P. Daniel

Scope and Content Information

The collection contains correspondence of three generations of the Daniel family. The earliest, 1816-1825, is between William Daniel, his wife Margaret Baldwin Daniel, and their children, chiefly regarding family matters. From 1826-1845 Sarah Warwick Daniel and William Daniel, Jr. are the main correspondents. There is some discussion of Daniel's law practice, but most concerns the family.

The papers of John Warwick Daniel constitute the bulk of the collection. Civil War letters of Daniel and W.J. Kincheloe describe campaigns and battles, including Cedar Mountain, Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, Gettysburg, Rappahannock Bridge, The Wilderness, Spotsylvania, and the North Anna River. Several letters from prisoners of war to E.S. Halsey appeal for aid.

Daniel's postwar correspondence ranges through his student days at U.Va., his political career in the Virginia State Legislature and the U.S. House, and his 23 years in the U.S. Senate. Much of the correspondence discusses family matters with his father, sister Sallie Warwick Daniel Halsey, wife Julia Elizabeth Murrell Daniel, and children Caroline Daniel, John Warwick Daniel, Jr., and Edward M. Daniel.

Other correspondence with many prominent political figures praises Daniel's famous oration on Robert E. Lee (extant) at the dedication of the Lee statue in Lexington, Va.; congratulates him on his election to the Senate; requests patronage; and discusses such issues as funderism, free silver and William Jennings Bryan, the Virginia Constitutional Convention of 1901, the Civil War, particularly Daniel's vindication of Jubal Early, and Lee, and Virginia artillery units.

The collection also contains Daniel's U.Va. student notebook; a legal notebook; two books of miscellaneous quotations; diaries from 1903-1907; an 1831 autograph album; and a diary, 1901, describing personal and political activities, including his attendance at the meetings of the Senate Finance and Foreign Relations Committees.

Topics in a large series of speeches and research notes include the South, Southern Democrats, territorial expansion in the Spanish-American War, the Hawaiian Revolution, taxes, tariffs, and the Readjustor movement. Political papers, 1877-1904, discuss the bribing of black voters, 1879; the Virginia-West Virginia debt controversy; and the 1896 presidential election. Legal papers, 1873-1909, contain notes and drafts for some of his legal cases, frequently involving railroads.

The collection also contains essays; poetry; the 1829 diary of Susannah Caroline Warwick on a trip from Virginia to Saratoga Springs, N.Y.; some genealogical material; printed ephemera; photographs; and copies of letters from Robert E. Lee, Jeb Stuart, and Jefferson Davis.