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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.

Burnside, Ambrose Everett, 1824-1881 [Declaration to citizens of Roanoke Island to renew allegiance to Union]

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Gilder Lehrman Collection #: GLC01886 Author/Creator: Burnside, Ambrose Everett, 1824-1881 Place Written: Roanoke Island, North Carolina Type: Document signed Date: February 18, 1862 Pagination: 2 p. : Height: 32 cm, Width: 21 cm Order a Copy

Historically significant proclamation to the citizens of Roanoke Island, typifying the moderate approach to warfare of Ambrose Burnside, his patron George B. McClellan, and Northern Democrats. Promises not to "interfere with your laws constitutionally established, your institutions of any kind whatever, your property of any sort [i.e., slavery] …," if the citizens of this district returned their loyalties to the United States. Signed by Burnside as Brigadier General Commanding the Department of North Carolina and by Goldsborough as Flag Officer Commanding the North Atlantic Blockading Squadron.

Burnside, Ambrose Everett, 1824-1881
Goldsborough, Louis Malesherbes, 1805-1877

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