The Lane, H.S., mss. relate in the main to national and Indiana state politics and elections. Almost half of the collection falls within the years 1861-1867 when Lane was a member of the U.S. Senate. Included are letters from prominent political figures, letters from constituents in regard to issues before the Senate, letters from office- seekers, their relatives and friends requesting Lane's aid in obtaining civil and military appointments and letters and papers relating to the Civil War.

The collection also contains Lane's Mexican War Journal, July 11, 1846-June 5, 1847, which has been published in the Indiana Magazine of History, IV: 383-434, December 1957; letters and papers, 1846-1848, of his service in that war; copies of some of his speeches; invitations to speak at political meetings and other gatherings; family letters; and some 1860 letters relating to irrigation in Indiana.

Each manuscript is accompanied by a typescript. In addition the collection contains many typescripts of Lane letters and papers of which the originals are not in this library. Some originals are located in the Indiana Historical Society Library in Indianapolis.

Writers of letters and papers represented in this collection include: John Quincy Adams, Edward Raymond Ames, Conrad Baker, John Beard, Daniel Roberts Bearss, William L. Brown, Martin Lex Bundy, Simon Cameron, Henry Beebee Carrington, Charles Case, Charles William Cathcart, George H. Chapman, Salmon Portland Chase, John Coburn, Schuyler Colfax, Jacob Dolson Cox, John R. Cravens, Will Cumback, Garrett Davis, John Steele Davis, John Defrees, John Brown Dillon, James P. Drake, Cyrus Livingston Dunham, George Hedford Dunn, William McKee Dunn, William K. Edwards, James Aslin Elston, Samuel T. Ensey, Charles Fishback, Graham Newell Fitch, Calvin Fletcher, Miles J. Fletcher, Henry Hanford Fowler, Michael Christian Garber, James Abram Garfield, Jonathan Wesley Gordon, Willis Arnold Gorman, Horace Greeley, Walter Quintin Gresham, Pleasant Adams Hackleman, Allen Hamilton, Edward Allen Hannegan, David Pierson Holloway, William Robeson Holloway, Alvin Peterson Hovey, George Washington Julian, Jacob Burnet Julian, David Kilgore, Higgins Lane, James Henry Lane, Abraham Lincoln, Nicholas McCarty, Hugh McCulloch, David McDonald, Edward Wilson McGaughey, John McLean, James Henderson McNeely, Daniel Mace, Samuel Franklin Maxwell, John Franklin Miller, Caleb Mills, Robert H. Milroy, William Mitchell, Mrs. Lucinda M. (Burbank) Morton, Oliver Perry Morton, Isaac Naylor, Thomas Henry Nelson, John George Nicolay, Hugh O'Neal, Godlove Stein Orth, Robert Dale Owen, Samuel Wilson Parker, John Pettit, John Pitcher, Benjamin Perley Poore, Albert Gallatin Porter, Daniel Darwin Pratt, George Denison Prentice, Whitelaw Reid, John Clark Ridpath, George Robertson, John S. Scobey, William Henry Seward, Matthew Simpson, Thomas C. Slaughter, Caleb Blood Smith, Oliver Hampton Smith, James W. Somers, John J. Speed, Edwin McMasters Stanton, George Washington Stipp, James F. Suit, Jeremiah Sullivan, Zachary Taylor, Richard Wigginton Thompson, James Noble Tyner, John Palmer Usher, John Vawter, Daniel Wolsey Voorhees, Archibald C. Voris, Lewis Wallace, Gideon Welles, Western literary society of Wabash College, Albert Smith White, Morton Smith Wilkinson, Jesse L. Williams, Samuel Campbell Wilson, James Wilson, John Wilson, and Joseph Albert Wright.

See also Herman J. Viola, "Zachary Taylor and the Indiana Volunteers," Southwestern Historical Quarterly 72: No. 3 (January 1969), pp. 335-346.