This collection contains the papers and artifacts of an interrelated family prominent in Blacksburg's history. It includes the Civil War letters of Confederate surgeon Dr. Harvey Black, the Civil War diary of hospital steward John S. Apperson, cotton books and correspondence of Germanicus Kent, nineteenth-century account books of a Blacksburg general store, 1912 European travel diary, and the political scrapbooks of State Senator and Attorney General Harvey B. Apperson.

Thomas Nelson Conrad (1837-1905) served in the Confederate Army during the American Civil War and as President of Virginia Tech. The collection consists of the original manuscript of The Rebel Scout: A Thrilling History of Scouting Life in the Southern Army, written by Conrad from 1891 to 1893, and published in 1904.