Series: 1 RR (Volume 1)
Scope and Content Note: Draper notes, biographical and bibliographical, about Michel Ney and Peter S. Ney, followed by correspondence in the 1880s from the latter's pupils giving anecdotes and recollections about Ney's appearance, language, and behavior. There are copies of a letter (1828) by Ney and of a composition on Martin Van Buren and the United States Bank reputedly authored by him. Numerous clipped newspaper articles are scattered throughout this volume.

Series: 2 RR (Volume 2)
Scope and Content Note: Additional Draper correspondence, mainly 1885-1887, on Peter S. Ney and his claims to have been Marshal Ney, with additional notes and clippings. Some materials contain accounts of the medical exhumation of the body of Peter S. Ney in 1887, a project instigated by Draper to try to ascertain if the skull had been trepanned, an operation known to have been performed on Marshal Ney. One of Mary C. Dalton's letters (2 RR 14) contains brief comments on the noted trapper and Indian agent, Christopher (Kit) Carson and on her associations with the Carson family.

Series: 3 RR (Volume 3)
Scope and Content Note: Mainly Draper correspondence, 1881-1887, with additional notes, bibliography, and clippings, and a few manuscripts of earlier date. Many of these papers are concerned with the life of Michael Rudolph and the tales and traditions identifying him with Marshal Ney. Draper not only received correspondence on the topic from other authors, from descendants of Rudolph, and from the secretary of the American embassy in Paris, but he also collected a few letters of scattered dates, 1837-1851, written by George Bancroft and J.K. Tefft, whose interest in the Rudolph-Ney story had preceded his own. The earliest original manuscript in the volume is a certificate (1831) of good conduct written and signed by Peter S. Ney for one of his Virginia pupils, Sarah Emeline Andrews. Numerous clippings relate to both Neys as well as to Rudolph and include a few poems authored by Peter S. Ney.

Series: 4 RR (Volume 4)
Scope and Content Note

Draper correspondence, 1885-1887, and newspaper clippings. The majority of the incoming letters and articles discuss the life and physical appearance of Peter S. Ney.

In both manuscript and printed materials there are additional accounts of the exhumation of his corpse in 1887. One letter writer commented on an earthquake experienced in the Carolinas in August, 1886 (4 RR 31).

Series: 5 RR - 6 RR (Volumes 5-6)
Scope and Content Note: Two volumes containing copious notes and extracts copied by Draper from published sources concerning the life, career, and family of Marshal Michel Ney. At the beginning of each volume Draper placed a rough chronological outline and index to the notes.

Series: 7 RR (Volume 7)
Scope and Content Note: Copies of writings, 1823-1846, by Peter S. Ney, accompanied by additional Draper correspondence, 1885-1887, and newspaper articles about Ney. Half of the volume is filled by copies of Ney's poems and other writings transcribed by Draper from Ney's scrapbook loaned in 1888 by J.G. Ramsey of Rowan County, North Carolina. Also copied were several letters, 1845-1846, written by Ney to James Franklin Graham.

Series: 8 RR (Volume 8)
Scope and Content Note

A volume containing two sections:

1) Primarily incoming Draper correspondence, 1885-1890, and miscellaneous rough notes. Most of these papers deal with the life of Peter S. Ney.

2) Original documents by Marshal Michel Ney, Peter S. Ney, and Michael Rudolph. Marshal Ney's papers, 1799-1806, include three orders and one military letter written in French. Three letters, 1784, 1792-1793, comprise Michael Rudolph's papers. The two later items were addressed to George M. Bedinger and discussed western campaigns against the Indians and life in the United States Army. One (1792) bears an extensive annotation about Rudolph by Bedinger. Papers of Peter S. Ney are much more numerous. They include inscriptions on title pages to books, arithmetic problems, penmanship exercises, signed award of merit certificates for his pupils, a notebook containing his stenographic or shorthand system, a tuition schedule for his school in Catawba Springs, North Carolina, in 1841-1842, and annotated pages from a History of Scotland (1830) by Sir Walter Scott.

A few engraved portraits of Marshal Ney open the section of original manuscripts, and some newspaper clippings are scattered through both portions of the volume.

Series: 9 RR (Volume 9)
Scope and Content Note: Miscellaneous newspaper and periodical articles, 1816-1896. Contemporary accounts of the trial and execution of Marshal Ney and later discussions of the reports identifying him with Michael Rudolph and Peter S. Ney are included.

Series: 10 RR (Volume 10)
Scope and Content Note: Peter S. Ney's personal copy of Philip Buttmann's Greek Grammar (Boston, 1822). The title page bears an autograph signature of Ney with a brief note on his purchase of the book, and there are extensive annotations and marginal commentaries by him elsewhere in the volume.