Chiefly correspondence along with printed speeches, business records, maps, and other papers relating primarily to Wade's service as U.S representative from Ohio and to national and Ohio state politics. Subjects include the elections of 1860, 1864, and 1868; secession; Civil War; U.S. Congress Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War; emancipation and suffrage for African Americans; Reconstruction; the impeachment of Andrew Johnson; Wade's law practice and business, and family affairs. Correspondents include James A. Briggs, Salmon P. Chase, Jacob D. Cox, Henry Winter Davis, Count Adam G. De Gurowski, William Dennison, John W. Forney, James A. Garfield, Joseph H. Geiger, William A. Goodlow, Abraham Lincoln, R.F. Paine, Donn Piatt, William S. Rosecrans, William Henry Seward, Green Clay Smith, Edwin McMasters Stanton, and Charles Sumner.