The college letters describe daily undergraduate life, including debate societies, going to the legislature to hear bills debated, and war preparations, including drilling with the University Guards and militia arrivals at Camp Randall.
Civil War materials include three brief entry diaries for parts of 1862 and 1864-65; two account books from Reid's service as Brigade Commissary Clerk; and five scrapbooks, 1862-1907, one from wartime and four giving veterans' reminiscences and activities. Reid's diaries and letters describe daily activities, Reid's changing attitiudes toward politics, slavery, and Blacks; impressions of officers and their feuding in the 22nd; and descriptions of a Black school, the battles of Nashville, Resaca, and Peach Tree Creek, the burning of Atlanta, Sherman's March to the Sea, foraging, Reid's capture in 1863, and his treatment in a Southern hospital.
One letter describes the Champ Clark-Charles B. Landis debate at Clarinda, Iowa, August 21, 1900.
