In 2018, I stopped by the Johnson County (Ark.) Historical Association to visit with retired physician Don Pennington, a friend who volunteered to answer phone calls and greet visitors every Tuesday. That day, a woman delivered one of several containers of her deceased family member’s materials. The papers belonged to Lillian Estes Eichenberger Mickel.

Mrs. Mickel, a prolific photographer, talented artist, and caregiver, became the Johnson County historian in 1954. She wrote a four-volume history of Johnson County and published the 1835 tax records. She had collected boxes and boxes over nearly a century of life.

When Martha Sue Thomason brought in the first of her grandmother’s tattered cardboard boxes, Don introduced me and explained that I taught history at the University of Central Arkansas. I helped her carry in several more containers, and sometime during this process, Mrs. Thomason said, “I think that I might have something in one of these boxes that might be of interest to a history teacher.”

It was summer, and Arkansas temperatures hovered around 98 degrees. Although it had taken just a few minutes to tote in the materials, I had sweated through my shirt and was ready for some cool water. A few volunteers from the back of the building joined our trio near the front as we sat on wooden chairs, drank from chilled bottles, and let the air conditioner cool us down.

Fishing into one of the last boxes at her feet, Mrs. Thomason pulled out a typed transcript. It was a mimeographed copy, blue, smeared, and faded with age. The top of the first page read, “A diary of the changes and hardship of the service, kept by J.H.S. Funk, Col., 5th VA. Inf., Stone Wall Brigade. Harpers Ferry, Virginia: April 27, 1862.”

My first impressions: This pile of papers is a fake document that someone created sometime during the last 50 years. Or this is a copy of something already published somewhere. “Stone Wall Brigade?!” I thumbed through it quickly, and names popped off the page—Jefferson Davis, Bernard Bee, Joseph E. Johnston, Kirby Smith, J.E.B. Stuart, Robert E. Lee, and many more; maybe too many.

It had to be fake. I don’t know whether doubt showed on my face or she was just being polite, but one of the volunteer archivists looked over and said, “Hey, would you like to see the original?” “The original?” I asked, astonished. “You mean the original typed manuscript?” thinking she thought I couldn’t read the........

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