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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.

Semmes, Paul Jones, 1815-1863 to Joseph E. Brown

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Gilder Lehrman Collection #: GLC00572.24 Author/Creator: Semmes, Paul Jones, 1815-1863 Place Written: Columbus, Georgia Type: Autograph letter signed Date: January 9, 1861 Pagination: 2 p. : docket ; Height: 25 cm, Width: 20 cm Order a Copy

Retained copy/draft, signed and docketed. Paul Jones Semmes gives the Governor of Georgia a general account of purchases made for the State of Georgia totaling $93,596.35. He recommends that a battery be set up at Tybee [Island] at the mouth of the Savannah River and discusses outfitting it with munitions. The Union Army would later use siege batteries on Tybee Island (near Savannah) in their successful bombardment of Fort Pulaski in April of 1862.

Semmes, Paul Jones, 1815-1863
Brown, Joseph Emerson, 1821-1894

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