This gossipy and personal letter captures the close friendship between Robert E. Lee and John "Jack" MacKay. It offers an example of letter writing in the days before the instant communication provided by telephones and the Internet. It also demonstrates the camaraderie and easy-going friendship of army officers as well as the relatively carefree life enjoyed by US soldiers prior to the Civil War. It serves as a reminder that even the greatest of historical figures were human and spoke of girls, babies, and "blushing."
Lee and MacKay became friends while they were cadets at the US Military
JUNE 12, 1863: LINCOLN DEFENDS THE ARREST OF VALLANDIGHAM
Clement L. Vallandigham, a Democratic congressman from Ohio, distinguished himself as one of Abraham Lincoln’s most vociferous critics. Although claiming a great love for the Union, he condemned nearly all the measures the administration undertook to save it. Vallandigham opposed conscription, constraints on civil liberties, and most of all, emancipation. In a speech in Congress he compared the draft to the seizure of infants under the pharaohs, warning that "like the destroying angel in Egypt," the government would "enter every house
If you don’t see the full story below, click here (PDF) or click here (Google Docs) to read it—free!
JULY 1–3, 1863: THE BATTLE OF GETTYSBURG
As the Army of the Potomac moved northward in late June 1863 to counter the Army of Northern Virginia’s invasion of Maryland and Pennsylvania, it passed by the battlefields of Manassas. Samuel W. Fiske, a brigade staff officer in the Second Corps, noted that he was "much shocked to find such great numbers of the bodies of Union soldiers lying still unburied" nearly ten months after the battle of the previous August. "Their skeletons, with the tattered and decaying uniforms still hanging upon them, lie in many parts of last year’s battle field, in long
If you don’t see the full story below, click here (PDF) or click here (Google Docs) to read it—free!
Benedict Arnold, whose name is now synonymous with the word "traitor," was once a well-respected American officer responsible for key victories at Fort Ticonderoga, Crown Point, Fort Stanwix, and Saratoga. Arnold’s contemporaries were shocked when his plot to surrender West Point to the British was discovered in September 1780. Historical records indicate that Arnold’s betrayal had begun in the spring of 1779 when he handed over military intelligence to the British. On August 3, 1780, he assumed command of the garrison at West Point, New York, and began to secretly negotiate its surrender to
SEPTEMBER 19–20: THE BATTLE OF CHICKAMAUGA: MISSED OPPORTUNITY
In June 1863 the Union Army of the Cumberland under William S. Rosecrans commenced a skillful campaign of maneuver. In just over twelve weeks it drove the Confederate Army of Tennessee under Braxton Bragg out of its namesake state and into northern Georgia. Jefferson Davis compelled Robert E. Lee to detach two divisions from the Army of Northern Virginia under the command of James Longstreet and send them to reinforce Bragg in anticipation of a counterstrike.
After several days of skirmishing, on September 18 the Confederates
If you don’t see the full story below, click here (PDF) or click here (Google Docs) to read it—free!
If you don’t see the full story below, click here (PDF) or click here (Google Docs) to read it—free!
by Elena Colón-Marrero, Christopher Newport University Class of 2014
One would think that growing up in a town rich in colonial and Civil War history would inspire an appreciation for that history. My experience living in Fredericksburg, Virginia, was quite the opposite. Fredericksburg’s history as a home for the Algonquian-speaking peoples, a port city in colonial Virginia, and a strategic location during the Civil War was all around me. However, I became desensitized due to numerous field trips to battlefields; constant references to George Washington and his mother, Mary; and my apathetic
OCTOBER 10 AND NOVEMBER 5, 1863: DAVIS TRIES TO RALLY CONFEDERATE MORALE
The summer of 1863 had been a poor one for the Confederacy. Robert E. Lee’s army was not just repulsed from its invasion of Pennsylvania but bloodily beaten at Gettysburg. At the same time, William S. Rosecrans maneuvered Braxton Bragg’s Confederates out of Middle Tennessee at the cost of fewer than six hundred Union casualties. Farther west, Ulysses S. Grant had at last captured Vicksburg, the strongest Confederate citadel of the Mississippi, and delivered complete control of the "Father of Waters" to the Union. Lee
If you don’t see the full story below, click here (PDF) or click here (Google Docs) to read it—free!
NOVEMBER 23–25, 1863: THE BATTLE OF CHATTANOOGA
On the afternoon of November 25, 1863, Ulysses S. Grant stood on Orchard Knob east of Chattanooga, Tennessee, and pondered what to do next. It was just over a month since he had arrived at the town where the Army of the Cumberland, in the aftermath of its defeat at Chickamauga on September 20, found itself besieged by the victorious Army of Tennessee under the command of Braxton Bragg. Grant’s job was to break the siege and defeat the enemy.
It was a daunting task. The Confederates looked down upon their beaten foe from defensive positions along
If you don’t see the full story below, click here (PDF) or click here (Google Docs) to read it—free!
JANUARY 2, 1864: GENERAL CLEBURNE PROPOSES THAT THE CONFEDERACY FREE AND ENLIST ITS SLAVES
As 1864 began, both northerners and southerners believed that the coming year would prove decisive in the ongoing conflict. Although the Confederates had suffered several serious setbacks in 1863, they were far from finished. If they could just fend off and frustrate the Yankees in 1864, enough voters in the North might grow weary of the seemingly endless bloodshed and vote Abraham Lincoln out of the White House, paving the way for a negotiated settlement that would recognize southern independence. But
If you don’t see the full story below, click here (PDF) or click here (Google Docs) to read it—free!
If you don’t see the full story below, click here (PDF) or click here (Google Docs) to read it—free!
MARCH 9, 1864—ULYSSES S. GRANT IS COMMISSIONED AS LIEUTENANT-GENERAL
On March 8, 1864, Ulysses S. Grant and his eldest son, Fred, arrived at Washington, DC. It was the general’s first visit to Washington since 1852, when he had been a young officer. What happened next is fairly well known. The front desk clerk at Willard’s Hotel did not recognize his distinguished guest and assigned him a small room before realizing that the hero of Vicksburg and Chattanooga was standing before him. After struggling to eat a meal at the hotel restaurant as excited onlookers buzzed around him, Grant made his
If you don’t see the full story below, click here (PDF) or click here (Google Docs) to read it—free!
In this newly received donation to the Gilder Lehrman Collection, Eleanor Roosevelt responds to a correspondent who was apparently worried about the desegregation of restrooms and forced social interaction between the races in the government’s movement toward racial equality in some spheres. Mrs. Roosevelt enumerates the "four basic rights which I believe every citizen in a democracy must enjoy. These are the right for equal education, the right to work for equal pay according to ability, the right to justice under the law, the right to participate in the making of the laws by use of the
This archive of twenty-six documents was compiled by Pierce Butler when he served as one of South Carolina’s delegates to the US Constitutional Convention in 1787. It includes the printed first and second drafts of the Constitution; two small notebooks of proceedings; contemporary copies of the Virginia (or Randolph) Plan favoring larger states in Congress, the New Jersey (or Patterson) Plan favoring smaller states, Hamilton’s plan for a bicameral legislature and permanent executive, and Franklin’s compromise—all of which were used by Butler during the debates. These documents provide a
<p>The Gilder Lehrman Collection has more than 10,000 letters written by soldiers during the American Civil War, and when you read dozens or even hundreds of letters by the same person, it is very much like reality television. You become involved in the drama of their lives—the war, relationships, finances, and losses. You are with <a href="https://www.gilderlehrman.org/collections/treasures-from-the-collection/... Tillotson when he learns his four-year-old daughter Lucy died during an epidemic</a> that also threatened his other children. And you can ’t
The Henry Knox Papers in the Gilder Lehrman Collection contain more than 10,000 documents dating from 1750 to 1820. The bulk of the archive chronicles the American Revolution and early founding era. The depth and complexity of the Knox Papers have made it a favorite with the curatorial staff. One particularly interesting document from this archive is the Knox family’s living expenses in New York and when Henry served as secretary of war under the Articles of Confederation. It includes all the budget basics that we have today: rent, taxes, transportation, clothes, heat, school cost, household
A good primary source will give you a sense of immediacy and awe that makes history come alive and leaves you with a deeper understanding of an event. It is one of the key elements we look for when adding materials to the Gilder Lehrman Collection. When we first learned of these photographs taken during the Japanese raid on Pearl Harbor and in its immediate aftermath, we knew they would be a good fit in our Collection, and when they arrived, the staff was struck by the power of the images.
We knew the statistics. Over 2,400 Americans were killed and an additional 1,178 were wounded in just
<p>The Gilder Lehrman Collection includes a letter and a painting by Ulysses S. Grant when he was a cadet at the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York. These unique items reveal Grant as the equivalent of a modern-day college student.</p><p>On September 22, 1839, Cadet Grant wrote this letter to his cousin, McKinstrey Griffith, between the first-year summer encampment ended and the beginning of the academic year. In it, the seventeen-year-old reveals his uncensored first impressions of West Point, his sense of humor, and a bit of a mid-western drawl. It is
