Our Collection

At the Institute’s core is the Gilder Lehrman Collection, one of the great archives in American history. More than 85,000 items cover five hundred years of American history, from Columbus’s 1493 letter describing the New World through the end of the twentieth century.

Hunt, Henry Jackson (1819-1889) to Braxton Bragg

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Gilder Lehrman Collection #: GLC00925.02 Author/Creator: Hunt, Henry Jackson (1819-1889) Place Written: Fort Pickens [?] Type: Autograph letter signed Date: 23 April 1861 Pagination: 3 p. : docket : envelope ; 25 x 20 cm. Order a Copy

Replies to Bragg's earlier letter (GLC00925.01) regarding their long time friendship and their now differing loyalties in the war. "How strange it is! We have been united in our views of almost all subjects, public and private. We still have, I trust, a personal regard for each other which will continue, whatever course our sense of duty may dictate, yet in one short year after exchanging at your house assurances of friendship, here we are face to face, with arms in our hands, with every prospect of a bloody collision. How strange!" Sympathizes with the south and his southern friends but believes the south was wrong to secede and that war was unavoidable. But despite all this, firmly believes the country and its people will reunite: "I trust and I believe notwithstanding the dark prospects before us, and although blood may flow like water, that the time will yet come - if neither of us fall in the struggle - when we will meet again not merely as friends, which I am sure we will continue to be, but as fellow citizens of a great, prosperous, happy and united country." Includes an envelope addressed to Major Nichols (an aide).

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