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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.

Shifflet, Hillary, 1823-1863 to Jemima Shifflet

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Gilder Lehrman Collection #: GLC02174.05 Author/Creator: Shifflet, Hillary, 1823-1863 Place Written: Taylor County, Kentucky Type: Autograph letter signed Date: October 6, 1862 Pagination: 3 p. : Order a Copy

Written in pencil on patriotic stationery. Shifflet asks his wife to write as soon as she receives the money he has sent as he worries it is lost. He was nearby when George Ennis was shot and "my cap box was shot off of my belt and fore bullets holed in my blouse and my gun barrel [was] shot off." Stunned, Shifflet had to leave the field but he later "got another gun and went back but the rebbles" ran and his regiment "whip[ped] them badly by that morning." He says the Confederates failed to kill him but they "will never come enny nerer without kilen me." His leg was sore for two weeks but he has almost recovered. It is very cold and the snow is four inches deep.

Shifflet, Hillory, 1823-1863
Shifflet, Jemima Cox, 1822-1881
Ennis, George, fl. 1862

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