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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.

Goldsborough, Louis Malesherbes, 1805-1877 To the men under his command

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Gilder Lehrman Collection #: GLC02252 Author/Creator: Goldsborough, Louis Malesherbes, 1805-1877 Place Written: Roanoke Island, North Carolina Type: Letter Date: February 9, 1862 Pagination: 2 p. : Height: 34.6 cm, Width: 21.1 cm Order a Copy

Written aboard the flag steamer USS Philadelphia. General order, signed clerically, sent by Flag Officer Goldsborough as commander of the North Atlantic Blockading Squadron thanking his men for a victory "worthy of yourselves and the sacred cause the flag upholds." Says they have more work to accomplish and they "will soon deliver another blow to crush the Hydra of rebellion." At some point another sheet of paper seems to have been pasted and torn off the document. During his command of the North Atlantic Blockading Squadron from October 1861 to September 1862, Louis Goldsborough led his fleet off North Carolina, where in cooperation with troops under General Ambrose Burnside, he captured Roanoke Island and destroyed a small Confederate fleet. After special administrative duties in Washington, D.C., he took command of the European Squadron in the last year of the U.S. Civil War, returning to Washington in 1868 to serve as commander of the Washington Navy Yard until his retirement in 1873. Seems like water damage is present around two edges of the document.

Goldsborough, Louis Malesherbes, 1805-1877

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