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.

Bowen, John Stevens (1829-1863) to E. D. Blake

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Gilder Lehrman Collection #: GLC05813 Author/Creator: Bowen, John Stevens (1829-1863) Place Written: Graves County, Kentucky Type: Autograph letter signed Date: 23 November 1861 Pagination: 1 p. : docket ; 25.1 x 18.9 cm. Order a Copy

Col. Bowen urges Capt. Blake, acting assistant adjutant general under Confederate general Leonidas Polk, to urge Polk's attention to "the condition of my Quartermaster Dept." Notes that Polk owes money to him and "nearly every farmer around us…I say nothing about the men who are also in need of their pay…." Bowen, then commander of Camp Beauregard at Columbus, Kentucky, rose to the rank of major general before his death from dysentery in 1863. Polk's decision to occupy Columbus in the fall of 1861 was a blunder that led to Union control of Kentucky.

Bowen, John Stevens, 1829-1863
Blake, E. D., fl. 1861

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