This collection consists of six letters among three different generations of the Dodge family while residing in Buffalo, New York; at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas; and in Emporia, Kansas. The letters mostly focus on family news, including marriage announcements and the illnesses and deaths of family members.

This six-page letter was written in the spring of 1874 from Fort Leavenworth, Kansas by Ella Dewey Woart, daughter of John Woart, post chaplain at the fort. Having arrived at Fort Leavenworth with her parents the previous fall, Ella writes to her grandmother, describing the appearance of the fort, her family's quarters, her father's work, and the inhabitants at the fort and in the nearby town of Leavenworth.

The collection includes correspondence, notes and source material, clippings, maps, photographs, documents, and other related items, dating primarily from 1841-1923.

The Lewis A. Waterman Collection contains twenty-nine letters that were written by him from 1864 to 1865 while serving in the United States Signal Corps, stationed chiefly at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. The collection also includes cartes de visites of Waterman's Signal Corps comrades at Fort Leavenworth.