The Bayard journal offers a detailed record of the first half of his tenure as American Commissioner of Claims in London. In that capacity, Bayard writes regularly about his correspondence with Secretary of State Timothy Pickering (5/29/1795, 11/1/1795, 11/2/1795), meetings with Vice President John Adams (11/13/1795, 1/22/1796), and various news to the French Revolution (e.g. 5/29/1795 and 5/31/1795), the Jay Treaty (8/8/1795), and warning signs of what would become the Panic of 1796-97 (6/26/1795, 7/14/1795). Notably, his notes concerning the financial panic underscore the interconnectedness of national markets. "Alarm prevails - some bad news from India," writes Bayard. "A great scarcity of money - India stocks fall…American stocks have fallen also in consequence of the scarcity of cash & the late news from the U.S." (5/25/1796).
 
What researchers might find most surprising, however, is how much of this volume strays from international law and diplomacy into the eighteenth-century arts and sciences. Bayard records a gallery opening at the Royal Academy (5/25/1795), attends a Methodist meeting (6/28/1795), goes to theater (9/24/1796), and visits numerous coffee houses in London, Bath, Bristol, and Oxford. In his travels, he meets a number of significant figures in the arts and sciences. He writes about a meeting with writer and collector William Henry Ireland, who shows him "a copy of one Shakespeare's manuscripts" (9/16/1795). The next year, that "new play," Vortigern and Rowena, would later be discovered to be a forgery, the subject of significant controversy. Towards the end of his volume, he also notes an encounter with astronomer William Herschel, who shows him his 40-foot telescope behind his house (6/13/1796).

Appointed by President Washington as American Commissioner of Claims to represent the United States in the British courts, Samuel Bayard appeared before the admiralty courts in London for four years, during which time he obtained more than ten million dollars in compensation for American interests. His journal, which accounts for the first half of his tenure (5/8/1795-12/31/1796), offers a window into international law at the turn of the nineteenth century, the French Revolution, the Panic of 1796-97, and the early national period in an international context. Alongside his work in international law, Bayard demonstrates a keen interest in the arts, especially literature, and at one point crosses paths with writer and collector William Henry Ireland.
 
The Bayard journal offers a detailed record of the first half of his tenure as American Commissioner of Claims in London. In that capacity, Bayard writes regularly about his correspondence with Secretary of State Timothy Pickering (5/29/1795, 11/1/1795, 11/2/1795), meetings with Vice President John Adams (11/13/1795, 1/22/1796), and various news to the French Revolution (e.g. 5/29/1795 and 5/31/1795), the Jay Treaty (8/8/1795), and warning signs of what would become the Panic of 1796-97 (6/26/1795, 7/14/1795). Notably, his notes concerning the financial panic underscore the interconnectedness of national markets. "Alarm prevails - some bad news from India," writes Bayard. "A great scarcity of money - India stocks fall…American stocks have fallen also in consequence of the scarcity of cash & the late news from the U.S." (5/25/1796).
 
What researchers might find most surprising, however, is how much of this volume strays from international law and diplomacy into the eighteenth-century arts and sciences. Bayard records a gallery opening at the Royal Academy (5/25/1795), attends a Methodist meeting (6/28/1795), goes to theater (9/24/1796), and visits numerous coffee houses in London, Bath, Bristol, and Oxford. In his travels, he meets a number of significant figures in the arts and sciences. He writes about a meeting with writer and collector William Henry Ireland, who shows him "a copy of one Shakespeare's manuscripts" (9/16/1795). The next year, that "new play," Vortigern and Rowena, would later be discovered to be a forgery, the subject of significant controversy. Towards the end of his volume, he also notes an encounter with astronomer William Herschel, who shows him his 40-foot telescope behind his house (6/13/1796).

As a surgeon, Thomas Hewson Bache provides an on-the-ground view of the Civil War in a diary, maintained throughout 1862 (1/1-11/28), that traverses the American North and South. The first half of the journal documents his life at camps in the South, including Baton Rouge, Cape Hatteras, New Orleans, and Vicksburg, and, starting in late-September, he returns to the northeast, first to New York and then to Philadelphia. In addition to providing a glimpse at soldier camps—especially in Baton Rouge (8/8)—Bache records at least one instance of Yellow Fever. Read together with the Alexander Dallas Bache diary, also from 1862, this volume furnishes researchers with new insights into the Civil War as it was experienced by those on its battlefields.