It has proven impossible in a substantial number of cases to identify particular pages with any particular published article. Some such pages contain titles given them by the author. These have been arranged alphabetically. In other cases, the pages have been grouped according to subjects dealt with and arranged alphabetically. In the course of arranging these manuscripts, a number of drafts of letters have been discovered. These have been dated, where necessary, and placed with the correspondence. The task has been difficult and it would certainly be amiss to claim that we have achieved perfection. However, our aim throughout has been to make the microfilm publication as useable as possible, taking into consideration the limitations of time and funds, for the scholar. It is hoped that we have achieved a certain measure of success in this. Throughout the microfilm targets have been used to call the scholar's attention to various defects in the documents which might otherwise be thought to be due to faulty microfilming, to identify various items, and to point up special problems that have arisen in arranging and microfilming the manuscripts. Targets have not been used in cases, such as for torn or mutilated pages, where the defects should be readily apparent to the user.
In a number of instances, pencilled numbers appear at the top of the first page of various items. These were so placed prior to the acquisition of the papers by the Notre Dame Archives and do not bear any necessary relation to the present arrangement of the papers. In certain other instances, the signatures of those who wrote letters have been cut away, again before the papers came into our possession. In both instances these discrepancies are readily apparent and, therefore, targets have not been used.
As an aid to identification and citation, each frame on each roll has been given a specific number which will be found on the lower right-hand comer of the frame. No matter how careful the editors and the filmers have been, there are bound to be cases where, after a whole roll has been filmed, it becomes necessary to either add or delete a frame. Obviously, this throws off the numerical sequence of the frame numbers. To meet this difficulty we have employed the following technique: when a frame has had to be added, we have used the number of the preceding frame and added an "A" to it; when a frame has had to be deleted, the number assigned to that frame simply does not appear. While these procedures are a compromise with perfection, they are realistic in terms of the problems which unfortunately arise in microfilming, especially when the alternative might well involve several refilmings of an entire roll.
A complete listing of all items microfilmed, in the order microfilmed, will be found on Roll One. In addition, each roll contains a complete list of all the items which appear on that roll.
This list contains the names, arranged alphabetically, of those who corresponded with Orestes Augustus Brownson and whose letters are found on the first eight rolls of this microfilm publication. Where one person has written more than one letter, the letters have been listed under his name in a chronological order. Where several persons have joined to send one letter, separate entries have been made for each person. The dates of each correspondent's letters are given in the same chronological order in which they are found on the microfilm. An exception has been in the case of enclosures, which have been filmed immediately after their cover letters. In such cases, two dates have been given: first, the date of the enclosure; and, second, the date of the cover letter. For example, E.D. Barker's letter of Feb. 5, 1862, to William D. Kelley is listed thus: 1862 Feb. 5 (to William D. Kelley, encl'd in 1862 Feb. 6, Kelley to O.A.B.). On the microfilm the reader will find the letter by referring to the date of the cover letter. Letters dated only by month and year will be found at the beginning of that month; letters dated only by year will be found at the beginning of that year. Letters dated only by decade will be found at the beginning of that decade. For example, a letter dated [186?] will be found at the very beginning of the letters for 1860. Undated correspondence has been filmed after the dated correspondence and arranged alphabetically according to the author's last name. This list does not include either the correspondence in the Scrapbook of Army Letters of Captain Edward P. Brownson, filmed on Roll Eight, or the correspondence acquired from other collections, filmed on Roll Nine. The correspondence from other collections has been filmed separately in units according to the source from which it has been obtained. A complete listing of this material will be found in the list of items microfilmed. On both the film and in that list this material has been placed after the undated correspondence in the original Orestes A. Brownson Collection.
[Summaries of early and undated letters may be found by searching the online version of our calendar.]